Where the streets have no shame

My oh my, we're highly-strung creatures this week, if The Age online is anything to go by. Tuesday morning saw the front page declare (with pic), the launch of Google's latest initiative - Google Street View. I must admit that before I'd even had a chance to launch The Age website, I'd been directed to the GSV site, via a hyperlink in an email from a friend to my Hotmail address (the fact that I was checking my Hotmail before checking the state of world affairs is a matter I'd prefer not to dwell on here ;)). Anyway, the sender of said email had kindly gone to the trouble of personalising the link in such a way that when I opened the page I was looking directly at photos of my quiet, leafy, dead-end suburban street. It was only a matter of seconds before I'd found my car, and I confess that at that moment I did entertain the very fleeting thought of "My car's famous!"

'Celebrity vehicle' pride aside, the implications of GSV are perhaps more significant than the peoples at Google HQ first imagined. It has made front page of the same online paper for the three days since the launch, coming under scrutiny from 'privacy activists' such as the Privacy Commissioner, and the representatives from the Australian Privacy Foundation (God bless 'em - didn't even know they existed).

Needless to say, there's plenty of positive feedback about the site, from fascinated folk who appreciate the technological wizardry that allows us to 'walk' fearlessly down dingy alleyways in our pyjamas, and up Punt Road hill without raising our heartbeat... One dedicated GSVer even enjoyed an extended journey along the Great Alpine Road, somewhere between Melbourne and Sydney. But amid all the cheers and voyeuristic revelations, there are grumblings of those who feel Google has overstepped the mark and see it as "just another corporate encroachment on the individual minding his or her business". In this way, it seems Google may have hit a collective raw nerve.

Granted, we're a country of wide open spaces, and we're used to having privacy. Pre-GSV, we could have the occasional moment of indiscretion and get away with it. These days, it's not so easy. Part of the problem is that the site uses old photos, thus creating a strange distortion of time (the Google van apparently doing most of the snapping back in November last year). Thanks to GSV, moments we thought were banished to the annals of history are suddenly back before our very eyes. And the eyes of 60% of the country's population who have access to the internet. Confronting perhaps, depending on what one was doing back in November. If, like Mashup blogger 'JT', you were cheating on your partner, perhaps November was a month you'd prefer to forget. In a moment of seemingly uncharacteristic insight, JT declared his ex would "kill me if she sees this." "This" being the GSV photo of his car parked outside the house of the girl with whom he was having an affair... Ah, but the *camera* at least doesn't lie ;)

I could rant about this ad nauseam, but I'll refrain for fear of never stopping. I will, however, say how grateful I am that there wasn't a Google van around to capture me scurrying to the bins and back in my PJs at night, or casting an opportunistic eye over the neighbours hard rubbish offerings... Without delving too deeply, it seems I managed to escape public humiliation...in my own street, at least. Lucky stars, I thank thee!

At the very least, the GSV experiences of others are a handy reminder that out of mind is not necessarily out of sight. And that just as one should always wear clean underwear in case there's a need to travel by ambulance, one should refrain from having affairs in case there's a Google van driving by.

Oh, and it seems I have a friend in Kevin, who announced on Mashup: "I saw my car. Pretty cool." 'Celebrity vehicle' pride is alive and well.