Google can now see via street view INTO HOMES

OAKLAND, Calif., May 31 � For Mary Kalin-Casey, it was never about her cat.

Monty the cat was visible in a photo showing a street in Oakland.

Ms. Kalin-Casey, who manages an apartment building here with her husband, John Casey, was a bit shaken when she tried a new feature in Google�s map service called Street View. She typed in her address and the screen showed a street-level view of her building. As she zoomed in, she could see Monty, her cat, sitting on a perch in the living room window of her second-floor apartment.

�The issue that I have ultimately is about where you draw the line between taking public photos and zooming in on people�s lives,� Ms. Kalin-Casey said in an interview Thursday on the front steps of the building. �The next step might be seeing books on my shelf. If the government was doing this, people would be outraged.�

Her husband quickly added, �It�s like peeping.�

Ms. Kalin-Casey first shared her concerns about the service in an e-mail message to the blog Boing Boing on Wednesday. Since then, the Web has been buzzing about the privacy implications of Street View � with varying degrees of seriousness. Several sites have been asking users to submit interesting images captured by the Google service, which offers panoramic views of miles of streets around San Francisco, New York, Las Vegas, Miami and Denver.

On a Wired magazine blog, for instance, readers can vote on the �Best Urban Images� that others find in Street View. On Thursday afternoon, a picture of two young women sunbathing in their bikinis on the Stanford campus in Palo Alto, Calif., ranked near the top. Another showed a man scaling the front gate of an apartment building in San Francisco. The caption read, �Is he breaking in or has he just locked himself out?�

Google said in a statement that it takes privacy seriously and considered the privacy implications of its service before it was introduced on Tuesday. �Street View only features imagery taken on public property,� the company said. �This imagery is no different from what any person can readily capture or see walking down the street.�

Google said that it had consulted with public service organizations and considered their feedback in developing the service, which allows users to request that a photo be removed for privacy reasons. A Google spokeswoman said the company had received few such requests.

For instance, Google worked with the Safety Net Project at the National Network to End Domestic Violence, which represents shelters for victims of domestic violence nationwide, to remove pictures of those shelters. �They reached out in advance to us so we could reach out to our network,� said Cindy Southworth, founder and director of the organization.

Not everyone believes the service raises serious privacy concerns.

�You don�t have a right to �privacy� over what can be seen while driving the speed limit past your house,� wrote a Boing Boing reader, identified as Rich Gibson, in response to Ms. Kalin-Casey�s complaint. Others dismissed her as a crazy cat lady.

Edward A. Jurkevics, a principal at Chesapeake Analytics, a consulting firm specializing in mapping and imagery, said that courts have consistently ruled that people in public spaces can be photographed. �In terms of privacy, I doubt if there is much of a problem,� Mr. Jurkevics said.

Still, the issues raised by the service, thorny or merely funny, were perfect blog fodder. The hunt was on for quirky or potentially embarrassing images that could be found by wandering the virtual streets of the service.

There was the picture of a clearly identifiable man standing in front of an establishment offering lap dances and other entertainment in San Francisco. The site LaudonTech.com showed an image of a man entering a pornographic bookstore in Oakland, but his face was not visible.

Others pointed to pictures of cars whose license plates were clearly readable. One pointed to images captured inside the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, a controversial location for photography in this high-security era. On Lombard Street in San Francisco, various tourists who had come to photograph the famously curvy street were photographed themselves.

Google said that the images had been captured by vehicles equipped with special cameras. The company took some of the photographs itself and purchased others from Immersive Media, a data provider.

�I think that this product illustrates a tension between our First Amendment right to document public spaces around us, and the privacy interests people have as they go about their day,� said Kevin Bankston, a staff lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group. Mr. Bankston said Google could have avoided privacy concerns by blurring people�s faces.

Back at her apartment, Ms. Kalin-Casey acknowledged that plenty of information about her � that she manages an apartment complex, that she was an Editor at the film site Reel.com � is already easily accessible through Google and other search engines.

�People�s jobs are pretty public,� she said. �But that doesn�t mean they want a shot of their sofa on Google.� She has asked Google to remove the image of her building, which was still online as of Thursday evening.

When a reporter first arrived to interview her, Monty the cat was visible in the window.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/01/technology/01private.html?em&ex=1180843200&en=83156047690c5c2c&ei=5087%0A

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The whole gang used to hang out at this one street corner and wait until the guys came by in the cars so we could go for rides. My DH came with 2 friends one night in a 53 Studebaker his friend owned. He offered to take me and my best friend out to see his 53 Ford Crown Vic that he was rebuilding himself. We went to his place and he started working on it while we were there. I jumped right in since he couldn't reach some parts of the engine, crawled up on the engine (in my white jeans no less), and helped tighten some bolts and whatever else had to be done.

I would suggest going to safe social dances, picnics, sport activities (if you're into that), etc. Don't hang out with a bunch (no more than 3) women. That might scare a guy off.

This was on Kim Komando's Cool Site of the Day. Thought y'all would enjoy these!

about a quarter-mile from my house. The owners just leave it in the yard while they go to work - no security fence, nothing. You have to pass a lot of houses until you get to the main street to leave the neighborhood and you also have to go up a big hill. Well, I went up the hill and he was lying in the road taking a nap and I ran him over! it was horrible! I didn't see him - just heard a loud thump. Total and complete accident!

No one was home at the time. He actually got up but I didn't want to go near him. It's a big black lab-looking mix. I know that dogs can get hit and seem okay, but then later die.

I'm not sure what to do! Would you go and tell them? Check on him? Leave him? I'm confused, upset, and still in shock.

with my husband and I am an IC. I have never been asked to get a letter from a service stating I would have work for a period of time. Anyone you contract with, would probably not do that. They cannot promise you anything. WE know that.

BUT what I am asked is how long I have been in the business. That seems to matter the most, as it should. And when I say *over 32 years*, then there is no problem.

If you are happy with you mortgage company and have good rates, then just explain to the loan officer how your job works and emphasize that you have been in the business for 6 years.

As an aside - the last mortgage officer knew I was self employed but when we went in with our W-2s and 1099s, he was shocked at my earnings. He said, *Most of the time, self-employed means no income and a lot of deductions." Make sure your mortgage company knows you make money at this and are not using it as a tax write off.

she was smart to do that....and she formerly had homes in London, then Germany, before locating to Zurich, and has had a home in S. France since the 80s, I think.....

She did not look like she had a total facelift to me last night....I thought perhaps a brow lift and definitely cheek implants - they are too big for her face and she looked like she had a very chubby face due to that, IMHO.....

If you can help or know anybody who can, please visit the below site and let people know, there are some really beautiful foals there that desperately need homes, please help. All for the animals.

March 14, 2007� Dozens packed the Belmont (California) city council chambers tonight for the first public airing of a new smoking ban proposal.

The law would give Belmont the toughest smoking ban in the nation � possibly in the world.

The crackdown aims to curb the harmful effects of second-hand smoke by preventing puffs not just in parks and around public buildings � but in private apartments and city streets as well. If the law passes, the only places left in Belmont to smoke would be single family homes and private cars.

Mayor Coralin Feierbach says the proposal was made to protect residents who suffer from health problems aggravated by smoke.The council didn't take action tonight. It's just the first of several meetings to discuss the proposal.

I believe I stopped having themed parties when my daughter was about 11 or 12, but when we went to see family, they took her and me out to dinner or lunch, had birthday cards, cake, or a special meal at home--maybe some money if they could afford to do so. One reason might be the cost of gifts that older children have come to expect, also the fact they become more choosy and harder to please about styles of clothing, as well as "toys." I had a friend who gave her children elaborate Easter baskets until they married and left home...that's what she liked to do--and that was fine! I just could not afford to do what she did for her children, ever, for any occasion.

It's remembering a special day that counts, not the party or gifts; I'm thankful my daughter learned that earlier than some and is passing that viewpoint on to my granddaughter.