The Wiki Man

11 April 2009

A fortnightly column on technology and the web

Obviously a few awkward scenes have emerged — one man photographed leaving a sex shop is clearly shown to be wearing a rucksack, something that could expose him to a lifetime’s ridicule in better circles. And Oasis’s Liam Gallagher hurriedly denied claims he was the figure seen gesturing at the camera outside the Queen’s pub in Primrose Hill (http://snipr.com/f3yrl) as he ‘never wears Reeboks with legwarmers’.

Yet, given the area covered, it is amazing how few scandals have emerged; nothing to the furore caused in France when authorities abandoned the practice of sending speed camera photographs to the owners of offending cars since they too often revealed mystery companions. All the same, many people claim they feel invaded. To me it’s much less questionable than online aerial photographs, which have existed for some time; after all, I have an expectation of privacy when in my back garden or on my roof which I don’t really have at the roadside. A few critics inevitably cite the risk of paedophilia, as though the location of schools was a secret until now. Others rather fancifully mention stalkers. If nothing else, the service will help stalkers maintain a lower carbon footprint, since they will no longer need to trawl the streets in their obligatory white vans.

You might argue that Google should announce when they are planning to film in a particular area so the more bourgeois of us can tuck our wheelie-bins out of sight. But that might be too much of a temptation to pranksters. Spare a thought for the Berkshire family who were surprised to learn that there was a 60-foot phallus painted on the roof of their £1 million country house (http://tinyurl.com/cku92o) — their 18-year-old son’s bid for fame on Google Earth.

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Alex

April 8th, 2009 6:14pm Report this comment

That 'Google divorce' has already been exposed as a hoax:

http://www.anorak.co.uk/media/205773.html

Rory Sutherland

April 11th, 2009 10:39pm Report this comment

I had picked up suspicions of the Sun's story from Anorak before I wrote my piece. However soon afterwards The Times printed a similar (the same?) story from a named lawyer, and so I assumed there had to be some foundation behind the thing. Now I'm not so sure.

It's certainly true that Google Street View images aren't date-stamped so, unless you are one hell of an astronomer, I can quite see how you would know the exact date at which the picture was taken.

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