Brit celebs' homes VANISH from Google's Street View Google is scrubbing out the homes of Blighty's rich and famous from its nosey Street View site. It has been reported that the likes of former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair, former Beatle Paul McCartney and Led Zeppelin axeman Jimmy Page have had their houses blurred on the mapping service. Popstar Lily Allen and former RBS …
Maybe the house hasn't been blurred by Google at all. Maybe it's just the crowds of ghosts of Iraqi children floating outside the house that gives that impression. I think they should probably try driving the Street View car by another time when Blair is not at home to be sure.
unless the mansion has a large sign outside saying "Tony Bliar Lives here" what is the point of blurring it? How would real people using streetview have any idea who lives in a particular mansion (unless someone had kindly spray-painted "Alleged war criminal lives here" on the wall).
Blurring number-plates and faces is reasonable - it's individually identifiable info, but a house?
Is this the start of a nice new website - "blurryhouses.com" that has photos of all the blurred houses on Streetview, plus a nice searchable index of who lives there? Much more of a problem to the 'celebs' than just being buried anonymously in Streetview. Streisand effect?
The whole point of installing an alarm system is that outsiders are aware that you have one, because you want to prevent anyone breaking in and instead choose an easier target. Say, one house that does not have a plaque visibly proclaiming that the place has an alarm system?
In fact, I don't have hard data to back it up, but I seriously feel that you can install the alarm plaque alone and get 98% of the benefits of having the full alarm system at a fraction of the price. You have either to be a very idiot burglar or target a really high value house to risk attempting a break in whenever an alarm *could* be installed.
Of course if that becomes fashionable, every house will have an alarm plaque, installed alarm or not, and then (a) the effectivity of having an alarm system will be greatly reduced because it will only help to prevent robbery, but not the break in damage and (b) alarm makers will create some other kind of way of advertising that a place is protected, which in turn will be copied and so on...
Don't think alarm makers are thrilled with that line of thinking, however.
That is one of the most ridiculous reasons for blurring your house I have heard. I could understand an open garage door (which normally remains closed) showing off a nice shiny bit of equipment or expensive motorbike, for instance, but any burglar can already see the alarm from the street, surely?
If it was considered a risk why not just spray over the logo or cover it up?
Almost every security device (locks, alarms etc) advertise who the manufacturer is to try to deter thieves...
That is one of the most ridiculous reasons for blurring your house I have heard. I could understand an open garage door (which normally remains closed) showing off a nice shiny bit of equipment or expensive motorbike, for instance, but any burglar can already see the alarm from the street, surely?
The ability to assess the risks of breaking into a house beforehand instead of having to take a look locally minimises the risk of being spotted casing the place or appearing on local CCTV beforehand. Such blurring should be mandatory.
Wrote :- "The ability to assess the risks of breaking into a house beforehand instead of having to take a look locally ....... Such blurring should be mandatory."
I am not sure this isn't an attempt at humour. The Google street view is equivalent to a glance, nothing that cannot be done by someone walking past with a phone camera for example. Practically everyone who walks past a house these days is waving a phone around anyway.
Nope.. still none the wiser.
Are you telling me that one of these houses is Tony Blairs?
Wrote :- "Could that also explain the double yellow lines both sides of the road across the frontage of this house and not the others in the street?"
I noticed that too. There seems be no other reason for it other than allowing his limo to pull in to pick him up, and making anyone else who pulls up look suspect.
Mind you, it must piss off the neighbours for one house on each side because they are left with nowhere to park.
It's got partly to do with the fact that Google's *cough* respect for your privacy included making it possible to zoom in to windows of premises.
In general:
"Your privacy and security are important to us," the ad giant claims in its Ts&Cs.
"The Google Maps team takes a number of steps to help protect the privacy and anonymity of individuals when images are collected for Street View, including blurring faces and license plates.
Sure, that's why they mounted the cameras on stalks so they could look over fences that were perfectly fine for normal privacy purposes, something that strangely/sadly only got them into trouble in Japan.
"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." - http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Gilmore
How long before a new crowdsourced website crops up to show what all the blurred properties look like - FROM A PUBLIC ROAD ?
Some people just don't seem to get it. Yet more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect in action.
Wouldn't fancy standing opposite the blurry one in Connaught Square with a camera for too long; probably asking for an invitation to discuss the finer points of the rights of the citizen in a democracy, while undergoing a cavity search...
AFAIK there is no legal basis to prevent you from making pictures there, but you're right, they could make up some BS story. My problem with doing that myself is that I am of the opinion that everyone is entitled to personal privacy, and as it's his home I would go against my own ethics to make pictures there. This is the conflict between seriously not liking this guy but having to stand up for principles I believe in.
I guess people will have to go back to visiting the places in person to see where the celebs live rather than sitting at home in their pants on the internet. I bet the celebs love that they will now be meeting more fans who just want to see where they live in person.
Extra points for getting a picture of their house uploaded to your site indexed so that it shows up when people search for "<celeb name> street view".
I THINK they just typoed "jape", as in a prank or joke.
But while I'm posting, I might as well just add that I despise Blair and the scum should be on trial for war trials for the number of British soldiers who are dead because of him. Iraqi civilians too though the US would have gone to war without us.
On fairness grounds I suggest that the UK population massively raises to the occasion and that each and every one of us formally asks google to blur our respective houses, lairs and sheds ! Why should it be only the fat cats and media stars? Discrimination I say !!!!
I had my house blurred some years ago. The StreetView picture was taken just prior to quite a lot of work being done on the house, and it didn't look good at a time I was getting ready to sell it. It isn't restricted to any stratum in society.
(I have just spotted that the copyright date on the StreetView image is now after the work was done, so I suppose I could have the blurring removed if I could be bothered ...)
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