Google has recently announced that Bangalore will be the first city in India, to have Google Street View. This will surely open a Pandora’s box and will start of a few debates about privacy in India. If you are living in Bangalore, you might expect to get cars like in the image below buzzing about scanning the streets of Bangalore.
This might be a welcome move for street view fans, who can look up streets level imagery from their computers. But, Street View does not serve any real purpose except that it makes Google maps a lot more interactive and addictive.
Popular tourist destinations have probably found that such street view imagery with Google Maps might actually encourage more tourism.
Concerns on Privacy and Safety
- Google Street View has had its fair share of controversies and some countries consider it illegal. It has been banned temporarily in Austria and Czech Republic.
- It is not countries like Israel due to security issues cropping up.
- The biggest controversy wallowed in certain as when Google collected and stored encrypted data from Wi-Fi connections in Germany. Google has apologised and said the data was picked up unintentionally. Since April 2011, Google has discontinued Street View in Germany.
- There have also been some positive stories about Street View, like once when a teenager used it to help the police find two robbers.
What are your views on Google Street View, do you welcome it? The geek in me welcomes such innovation as long as it stays clear for privacy issues for people. Do drop in your comments.
Source: Google India
6 Comments
Yes, I saw this news yesterday on news and also in ET newspaper today! Google Street View in my city 😀
I think this is really a good move by google. We should encourage google rather than just blaming under the buzz of security issues.
Google should not be allowed to show its street service in bangalore.I dont like anyone to show my pics without my consent and i think majority of population feels the same way.Google is bigger monster than microsoft.
There is a law that allows photographing people on public property. So Google or anyone for that matter is entitled to take photos of anyone in public. But, yes I understand there will be quite a few people who might have an issue with this.
A local company called VidTeq does something better than street view. They actually show videos of all the roads in Bangalore city. They have been doing this for the last 3 years. I would say, spread the word about VidTeq as this is born and brought up here in India. A great innovation coming from India. Check out http://www.vidteq.com.
Hey, I’m pretty excited about this news….