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[–] 172 points 1 week ago (2 children)

"Google says the document is deleted after 60 days."

Lol. They absolutely keep all of the data.

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  • [–] 148 points 1 week ago (3 children)

    The two counter arguments to this are:

    1. You are giving more personal data to google to prove you live at that address.

    2. A blurred house on street view makes you stand out and can make burglars think you are some rich guy with valuable stuff in their house.

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  • [–] 22 points 1 week ago

    Yeah this is exactly like the DNR (Do Not Track Request) built into browsers. It was off by default. Turning it on was only done by privacy focused individuals. But it made you significantly more trackable because almost nobody turns it on, your browser becomes a lot more unique.

    Thankfully browsers stopped supporting it. But this is the same thing. Very few people will use it, so that it'll make you stand out instead of helping you.

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    [–] 127 points 1 week ago (18 children)

    I'd rather my door be visible than tell google where I live.

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  • [–] 23 points 1 week ago (16 children)

    Google already knows. They just don't have a reason to check usually.

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    [–] 65 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    Google maps has a picture of my house from about 10 years before i moved in and it looks exactly like all the other houses around me...

    ...but i should give google personal information and utility bills to get it taken down?

    Nah.

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    [–] 58 points 1 week ago (29 children)

    Everyone does know that the front of your house is visible from the street, right?

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  • [–] 53 points 1 week ago (28 children)

    Yes, but with google maps it's visible from anywhere. And some folks might prefer that it not be 🤷🏻‍♂️

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  • [–] 11 points 1 week ago

    IMO the same concept as Cris_Citrus makes here, applies when ppl say "your address was always in the phonebook". Or how a film photo stuck in a drawer in Joe Sixpack's house is different from a digital photo analyzed by sophisticated machine learning algorithms by dozens of data brokers to build a dossier of your life. Even if in both cases "someone could always take your picture in public."

    Scale, and ease of access, have real impacts. Even if technically, the data was "always available."

    False equivalences, all of 'em. But pro-surveilence advocates love making them.

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  • [–] 48 points 1 week ago (6 children)

    don't tell google where you live

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  • [–] 41 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    "permanant"

    Brought to you by the same companies that "accidentally" re-add you to their spam lists.

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    [–] 41 points 1 week ago (7 children)

    Tbh the outside of my home is publicly viewable anyway. I can't think of why I'd care much.

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    [–] 34 points 1 week ago (5 children)

    Being the only blurred thing in the area seems a little conspicuous though

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    [–] 24 points 1 week ago (6 children)

    But now your making yourself more obvious, and you need to tell google your address. Is it really worth it?

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    [–] 23 points 1 week ago

    Feeding Google more data is always a good idea...

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  • [–] 23 points 1 week ago

    Do no do this, it will require more info to Google and make your house stick out like a sore thumb.

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  • [–] 22 points 1 week ago*

    burglars do their recon in pyjamas now. Make them commute

    Hey now, no need to bash wfh!

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  • [–] 21 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

    This should be opt-in, not opt out. IDGAF if it is public information that is perfectly viewable from the street, it shouldn't be on the internet without my consent. There are plenty of perfectly good reasons to blur your house aside from the worry of petty thieves. One, your privacy should be treated with respect. Streisand Effect doesn't really apply here because no one gives a shit if your house is blurred. No one cares as streetview passers by. Talk to your neighbors and then the whole street is blurred like my old street.

    This does not obviate the need for action at the legislative level. Google has used the streetview cars to collect plates and radio signals including WiFi information, who knows what else. They have so many databases of information on each of us to sell to adverts and to give freely to police.

    This opt out is a positive, likely carved out by litigation, in a very very negative space for privacy rights.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 week ago* (1 child)

    This opt out is a positive, likely carved out by litigation, in a very very negative space for privacy rights.

    It's not, it's less than Google used to do for these requests. In 2009, I requested my house be taken off streetview. They removed it by skipping mine and a few houses on each side.

    Then they went down my back lane, so everyone got a good look at my back yard anyway.

    Privacy today is a never ending battle, but Google started this nonsense a long time ago.

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  • [–] 21 points 1 week ago (9 children)

    Why would I do this? It’s just a door with a number on it.

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    [–] 21 points 1 week ago

    This is such a backwards-ass way to do things. I built my house using extra large bricks so it would be pixelated to begin with

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  • [–] 19 points 1 week ago

    So now they know where you live....

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  • [–] 18 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    The house we moved to last year had been blurred by the previous owners. It's permanent, so we don't get a choice about it.

    Tbh this is the only house I've ever looked up that was blurred.

    I get why, but it's also inconvenient. So many of us (in my area, anyway) look up the house on Streetview when going to an unfamiliar address, to help orient ourselves.

    It's not something I lose sleep over. But given the option, in a neighbourhood with no other blurred houses, in a low-crime, lost surveillance area, I don't think I would have chosen to blur the house.

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    [–] 17 points 1 week ago

    Lol as i am going to send google extra information to get a bit more privacy back. Thata stupid

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  • [–] 17 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    Someone on my street has done this and it completely fucks with street view for my own house, even though the blurred house is on a sheet running perpendicular to my street

    I don't understand why anyone would do this, if anything all it does is draw massive attention to the fact that someone wanted their house blurred.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    This does nothing but make your house more obvious. It's better to blend in than to stick out.

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    [–] 13 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    😅. Okay, story time:

    When StreetView was introduced this dominated public debate in Germany for weeks. It was all the rage, "how dare they to photograph everything?"

    One official even suggested "it's awesome, police can now patrol the streets from an office chair", because that is how much of a backwater country Germany is digitally.

    Anyway, people saw immediately all the crime which all the criminal criminals would do with this tool (which tells you something about the state of mind of the "righteous folks"). Anyway, half the country was blurred, because everybody knew about it. And it is the reason, why StreetView is so patchy in Germany (or at least was for the longest time, didn't check much in recent years) compared to the neighbouring states, 'cause Google pretty much said "Fuck these fucking Germans with their fucking shit".

    Apple came around some years later with their version, nobody cared anymore 😅

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    [–] 11 points 1 week ago (2 children)
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    [–] 7 points 1 week ago
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