Online Privacy – Is there any such thing? Part 2

Beware of the Google car...

Just like Santa, it knows if you've been naughty or nice; except it tells the world.

While reading “The Thinking Chick” blog about online security it made me think when she stating “Where did we develop this concept of what privacy means? In other cultures, how is privacy viewed?” It reminded me of the differences I noticed when I finally left Newfoundland to travel the world. In a geographically large province with only 500,000 people in total, I was used to small towns and wide open spaces. Large crowds and lack of personal space was very new to me.

The article went on to discuss issues such as a privacy of pictures on Facebook. Later she stated “do we need to rethink what privacy means?" I definitely think privacy need to be given some serious consideration. However, as I started thinking about how lack of privacy might cause some people to ‘run’ away from technology just to avoid these problems, I realized technology is chasing you regardless. It’s not just what you put online. Recently, I’ve seen people in England getting very upset because a ‘Google car’ is driving down their street filming everything and will later put this online on Google Street. So even if you isolated yourself completely from the internet they can still find you. Although, I think Google Street is very cool, I wouldn’t want it filming my street, would you?

This is a video you should all watch about the Google car. Unfortunately, it had the embedding option disables, so you will have to try the link.