Life, Liberty and the Right to Urinate on the Side of the Road Without Your Picture Winding Up on Google

The "right" to privacy has always been a right that I don't really understand. Some rights seem clear cut enough: I can see why you wouldn't want your financial information publicly available. People often take privacy "rights" to extremes that just make no sense. Witness the roll out of FastTrak in the Bay Area (system to pay tolls -- like EZPass). Many people were concerned that they were now trackable due to their FasTrak in their car (never mind the cell phone all of these people use on a daily basis). So California's Dept. of Transportation had to send people mylar bags to prevent the unwanted tracking of their cars. Personally I think people need to get over themselves. Why on Earth would anyone want to track you? In fact, what California actually does is use FasTrak to get accurate data for the wonderful 511 service (for those who have never used it there's both a web site and a telephone number that is voice automated and gives you real time traffic info -- talk about a great service!).

The hysteria over privacy has gotten worse with the advent of Google's Street View. People seem terrified that someone may have a picture of them and post it on the internet. The Consumerist (great blog) has an amusing story on this here (it's worth clicking on the link just to see the photo -- talk about bad timing. You're supposed to look first before you go! And what happened to a tree?). Google's position seems pretty reasonable: if you have a complaint let us know and we'll take down the picture. In general there's nothing to stop anyone from taking a random photo and posting it on their web site. Presumably people's concern is that Google is much more visible than a random person's web site. Again though, who really cares? If there's a random photo of me on Street View it's not really a big deal to me. Furthermore, if I wanted to be on Street View I have no idea how I'd find myself.

Juxtaposed to the whole "Street View-gate" is the fact that people (in general) seem to be willing to do anything to get publicity (some could argue this author is guilty merely by the publishing of this blog). You Tube and Pod Casts have gained intense popularity for just this reason. Anytime you watch a sporting event you'll see fans pushing and shoving to get on TV. All the news shows that have glass backdrops that let you see the people on the street are always filled with people pushing and shoving to get on TV. Obviously the difference is that these people are choosing to be filmed vs. not choosing. I just wonder what percentage of the people who are feigning outrage at Google's "blatant" violation of privacy are the same people who'd do anything to get on TV.