Captured by Google Earth

                 In The Googlization of Us, Siva Vaidhyanathan explores the capability of Google services to enable a new level of surveillance.  Google Street View and Google Earth, for example, allow the user to take a visual tour of practically any location.  As this area of Google emerged, “many commentators declared the service to be too invasive for comfort”, as users are able to easily view other people’s streets and homes.  While the service may be useful in certain situations, such as examining architecture or finding local landmarks, Vaidhyanathan reminds us that it is practical to remain wary of this new method of surveillance.   Features such as Google Earth and Google Street View have raised a number of concerns about privacy and surveillance, including the issues of trespassing, lack of notification, and disclosure of private information.

                While examining this article and considering the debates that have resulted from the emergence of Google Earth and Google Street View, I immediately recalled an experience from my past summer of work.  Over the summer, I work as a farm technician and help carry out a variety of confidential agricultural field trials.  When I returned to work this past summer, my coworkers told me that they had looked for the facility on Google Earth and had actually managed to find the vehicle and field setup that we had been using to collect data at an earlier date.  My coworkers were astounded by this discovery and even found it somewhat funny that we had been captured by the Google camera, but I couldn’t help but feel a bit disturbed.  Despite the absolute quiet and apparent isolation of the area of the farm that I had been working in, Google had somehow managed to capture my vehicle and equipment on camera without being noticed in any way.

                Prior to my own experience being captured on Google’s cameras, I didn’t give a second thought to these potentially invasive Google features.   Vaidhyanathan mentions in that “Google users became accustomed to the new function”, and this was definitely true for me.  However, my views definitely shifted when my activity was captured without my knowledge or permission, and I would say that I now completely agree with Vaidhyanathan’s warning to be wary of such ‘Googlization’.  I also appreciated that his writing also explored several important debates initiated by Google’s invasive mapping technologies.  The concept of Google ‘trespassing’ with its lenses was intriguing to me, and I can empathize with the concerns of the couple who accused Google of this.  I was alarmed by the fact that a Google camera had made its way into my work facility completely undetected and taken information to broadcast publicly.  Personally, I don’t believe that Google has any more right than a trespassing individual does to photograph private property.  I also appreciated the concerns that Vaidhyanathan discussed regarding anxiety about disclosure of private information.  The work that my company does is often confidential, and it is troubling that Google is free to access imagery of what we do at any time they choose.  While Google Earth doesn’t currently come close enough to reveal specifics about our experimental trials, it could definitely become even more of a threat as their technology becomes more refined, and it will be up to our facility to step in and request removal of the imagery.