Google Street View, Angry Villagers And Cheating SpousesGoogle Street View incidents have already hit the web from a lot of directions, but these follies are still a great subject for some opinionated TechMiso seasoning. So here it goes–

BBC News reported Friday-

…angry residents in Milton Keynes blocked the driver of a Google Street View car when he started taking photographs of their homes.

A troubling response from residents of the affluent type.

Google [we can assume] is an exceptionally smart corporation who – like all foreign companies doing business in the UK – is expected to follow UK law to the ‘T’ — especially when snapping photographs of ‘another country’ for its Google Street View service.

So why would the folks near Milton Keynes [who already live under a society plastered with CCTV surveillance cameras] become so defiant about their homes being photographed by a Google Street View vehicle?

With or without Google, vandals and robbers bent on stealing from these folks will steal regardless of how they stake out the place.

But what if it’s not Google snapping pictures. ‘What if’ the photographer is a passing pedestrian snapping shots say, for architectural interest? Does the passerby’s innocent activity warrant a confrontational run-in and say, maybe a camera confiscated by a few lawless villagers?

Just for humor points — consider the cheating spouse who [already ran a considerable risk] when being caught in his act. Ask this gentleman if Google is at fault because his wife spied his Rover on Google Street View — parked outside another woman’s house.

Google’s fault? Not likely.

The underlying problem is not with Google Street View and its collection of data, but rather with the gentleman caught cheating. Or potentially with the UK law that permits photography in public places — like the streets of Milton Keynes.

99.(six nines) percent of the time, Google Street View offers up fabulous views of our world — through its freely shared geospatial data — and with an easy-to-use web interface. On the rare event Google captures something distasteful, they self-admittedly remove it with reasonable quickness upon being notified.

We all knew what was up Google’s sleeve when Google Earth arrived on the scene back in summer 2005. Seeing your house from above in 2005 -or- seeing it now from both above and from the street — geospatial data is here to stay. Images of [cheating husbands, deer accidents and puking party goers] are collateral damage, like it, or not.

Are Google Street View ‘victims’ just the price we pay in collecting geospatial data?