Sunny, happy, Greece in the nes again...

Greece has stopped Google from adding further photographs from the country to its Street View application, which provides 360-degree street level imagery, because of its concerns over privacy.

The Hellenic Data Protection Authority has imposed the suspension pending "additional information". It has asked Google how long the images taken will be retained and what steps the company is taking to protect the rights of people caught on camera, including highlighting when they are being photographed by its fleet of cars.

"Simply marking the car is not considered an adequate form of notification," the authority said. "The authority has reserved judgment on the legality of the service pending the submission of additional information, and until that time will not allow [Google] to start gathering photographs."

The authority has suspended a similar mapping service, covering Athens, Salonika and Larissa, run by the Greek internet service provider Kapou.

(Oooooh dear, oh dear).

At least the haven't lined the streets with Greek troops yet, with orders to open fire on any Google camera cars - yet.

Greece will be like Britain soon, where the police force tourist delete pics from their cameras if they don't like them.

If it really was a genuinely anti-Swiss post/thread, then it would be judged racist and be deleted. It was interpreted as a light-hearted play on a few words.

The Jenisch can be introduced elsewhere as a general discussion item without attacking the whole Swiss nation, and can be discussed in the same way as potentially similar Nazi concepts have been freely discussed, without prejudice.

This thread already covers the topic of action against Google and Street View, and is the appropriate place to mention a BBC article which begins, "Web search giant Google faces a court case in Switzerland because of privacy concerns over its Street View service.

It looks as if there will be a new cat amongst the pigeons from now on, as it seems that Bing are following Google's lead in Street View, with reports of Bing camera vans on the streets.

First reports are from Vancouver, where the Winter Olympics will be starting soon, so it would seem likely that any initial releases for public consumption would seem likely to be from there.

World War II looms - The Swiss versus Google AND Microsoft

Maybe MS will just ignore them, and drive around boredom central

More joy for the anti-Google brigade, as some officials and residents of South Africa express indicate that they are less than enthusiastic, warning that in a country notorious for its high level of crime, the detailed data could be a "gift to thieves".

Haden Searles, chairman of the Durban North and Umhlanga community policing forum, told South Africa's Sunday Tribune: "This will only make the work of criminals easier. If they are going to target my house, I would want them to work much harder, not click on an image and know the security details."

Nice of Haden to give the bad guys a head start, and tell them a good place to look. I wonder what he's got that worth keeping hidden?

I only have second-hand knowledge of car crime in SA, but if it's anything to go by, then once again, the idea that photographs which are months out of date are an aid to crime is even more laughable than it is here. Even the newest Google Street View imagery is out-of date and useless for making such plans with any confidence, as CCTV and other cameras are added, moved, or removed, and streets are re-organised to suit new building works.

These supposedly concerned and worried people would do better to have HD camcorders and long focal length lenses and digital cameras outlawed, as the criminal can obtain these cheaply now, and make highly detailed, and mor importantly CURRENT images of anything they are interested, and without having to approach closely, thank to automatic image stabilisation systems built now built into both new cameras and lenses - plus low-light capabilities that were once only available to the military.

The anti-Googlies are actually diverting attention from the real dangers, and intrusions that should be paid greater attention.

But then again, somebody having a poke at Google always sells more headlines than someone suggesting a digital camera could be an aid to crime.

Google Street View raises crime fears in South Africa | World news | guardian.co.uk

How many of the following problems, supposedly attributed to Google, are actually down to Google, or are they really down to the actions of those seen the in pics - taken in public places, and which could have been taken by anyone - but pointing at Google diverts attention from them?

Google Street View's headaches around the world | Technology | guardian.co.uk

I don't know which is the daftest, either the bloke seen with a blonde (is his marriage really that shaky he can't even be photographed on an innocent day out with his secretary?), or the Australian examples, where they identified building violations - I hope that Australian law requires them to actually visit the sites and verify that the contraventions were actually there.

As for folk complaining about being seen publicly at sex shop - still not Google's problem, is it? Anyone could have taken the pic after all.

There are very few clouds in Google's aerial imagery - other than those of northeast Scotland, which are only slowly being dispersed even now.

I seem to recall there are various listings of "interesting" people and the location of their homes (usually to be found published in Google Earth kml/kmz files), but I can't point you to them as they are really of no actual interest.

(UK MPs seem to remain fairly secretive, and don't hand out their home addresses, just their London office/residence, as was seen recently. Maybe they claim "clouds" on their expenses.)

Perhaps a... Goggle search would reveal them.

The Google supremos are well known, and their details are in Wikipedia. From there, being American, it should be an easy task to find their home addresses, and have a look.

Wouldn't it be embarrassing (for the knockers) if they had made use of the option to have their Street View images voluntarily removed? They could hardly claim they were exercising the option of privileged treatment, not available to J Public.

Google HQ is often used for beta testing of new features, and we get notified and shown advance examples of new features using images of the company's campus. Fairly logical since they don't have to go far to check how the things are working.

Google seems to be omniscient on this computer.  It came with a Google toolbar with searchbox,  the usual MS searchbox, top right, Bing?  No Google again.  There is another search box lower right corner of the screen - yep Google again.   There is a search box behind the windows key but guess what - Google again.

The cream on the cake was getting a letter in the mail offering me Google advertising for 25p per click.

What have I done to upset them?

Seems you just can't please some people, no matter how philanthropic and useful (if global warming turns out to be real - just kidding! ) what you develop at fairly significant cost.

Google has developed a very impressive tool that researchers can use to track deforestation in minutes, rather than days or weeks, giving something close to real-time analysis of what is happening around the world, instead of only being able to look at the results of changes long after they have actually taken place.

Google's own description:

Official google.org Blog: Seeing the forest through the cloud

Was reported in The Guardian:

Google unveils breakthrough technology to monitor deforestation | Environment | guardian.co.uk

And attracted this first comment by someone who clearly wanted to get the boot in...

Quoted Text

Forests are not disappearing.

It's a communist/fascist/rightwing/neocon/martian conspiracy aimed at preventing us to use garden furniture and eat cheap chicken. Google pictures are fake, like those of glaciers disappearing, the satellite images of that bunch of communists of Nasa, tovarishch Met Office measurements, etc.

Wouldn't you love to get access to the "secrets" this commentator has locked up in their head