York council gets sniffy with Street View
Could have asked for permission to film
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York council is a bit miffed that Google's Street View spycars have hit the historic city's highways and byways without asking for permission to film, local paper The Press reports.
York Street View monitors have apparently been watching the Orwellian Opels doing their master's dark will over the past couple of weeks, prompting Privacy International director Simon Davies to declare: “It would have been nice and appropriate and perfectly legal for Google to go to the residents of York and ask their opinion on this, if for no other reason than to build trust.”
A City of York Council spokeswoman said: “As a rule of thumb, and out of general professional courtesy, we would normally expect organisations to contact us to seek permission to film in the city. They would also need special permission, and a permit, to use a vehicle for filming in the pedestrianised heart of the city. However, we are not aware of Google making any such requests.”
The spokeswoman added that York's city centre manager intends to contact Google and ask "what they were doing, where, when and why". The council will then determine if further action is necessary.
Google spokeswoman Laura Scott said the search monolith didn't know when York would be laid bare on the internet, explaining: "We are at the driving stage in Europe. Once we have all those European photos we will patch them together."
Well, we don't yet have a York Street View sighting on our splendid Spot-the-Snoopmobile mashup, but we do currently offer over 150 pics for your viewing pleasure:
View the Map (opens in a new window)
Keep those pics coming to me, right here, and remember to give the exact location. ®
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COMMENTS
Think about the place in history
OK, the Council says that Google should have asked permission for something that they were allowed to do, this would have involved extra pointless work by the Council and Google, if they said no then Google could have said "we'll do it anyway", if they said yes, nothing would have changed, even commenting on it is a waste of the Councils time (aka, your money).
What if Henri Cartier-Bresson asked for permission? if that's what some councils insist on these days what would we have lost to history? we need to protect the rights of Google as these are exactly the same rights of you and me to record history.
Yes you do!
Well, there are two York sightings on your map.....
@AC re: Stop using google
And if you feel bad about search engines making money use everyclick and give to charity.
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