Google's Mission

Google's new street view is kinda cool. you can zoom around the street and look at stuff. neat right?

well, sorta. its also kinda creepy. and the trend it demonstrates is even creepier. Google is the first to admit their goal; have all the data. they want every piece of data, ever, and they'd like it now if possible. Their business model is as follows:
1) get lots of data
2) ????
3) profit.

and its worked well for them so far. But their never-ending quest for more information is in direct conflict with their "do no evil" philosphy. Lets take google maps for example. Initially it was how most people probaby still use it, just maps, with directions, etc. then they added satellite imagery. "Hey cool, i can see my car parked outside my house!". now apparently they've sent a van to drive around select cities and take pictures of everything that happens to be going on in that street on that day. Naked person in the window? woops. Now you're online for millions to see! check out this (wired.com) for some funny photos people have found so far. The logical next step for this is to put live cameras up there and make it all update in real time. Horrifying. Then you can store and index all that data and... well forget about getting away with running any red lights. or anything else for that matter.

it comes down to a privacy issue. i mean, i dont really have a problem with google street view. but whats next for them if they keep going down this line? google interiors? google people? those are all downright frightening. google blueprints seems completely feasible. do you really want the blueprint of your house/apt available online at a moments notice to anyone?

Can google possible stay "not evil" while continuing to hoarde every piece of data they can get their hands on? i don't think so. I'm not really paranoid over this, i'm not gonna lose any sleep over google street view. i was probably at work when the pictures were taken. but its still pretty creepy, and continuing down the "more data more data!!" line it only gets worse.

Someone's apparently already sueing over it, claiming that her cat can be clearly seen in her window. i dont have the link, but whoever it is said something along the lines of: if it was the government doing this, people would be outraged. And she's right, if the feds were doing this (or telling us about doing this anyway), wouldn't you be pissed? shouldn't you be just as, if not more, pissed now? i mean its not just the feds who can see this, everyone can.

in the mean time, you just try to catch me sunbathing outside on the street, suckers.