Here’s a way to let Google know you aren’t happy with their efforts to photograph your property: you try to stop them in their tracks. That’s what a bunch of residents in Broughton, Buckinghamshire, England did when they spotting one of Google’s trucks entering their neighboorhood.
According to press reports from both the BBC and Sky News among other outlets, Broughton has been troubled by a spat of burglaries in recent months, so residents have banded together to watch for suspicious vehicles.
The argument is the images taken by Google Street View cameras are an invasion of privacy, and could be used by potential burglars to scope out homes without actually having to enter the neighborhood.
Police were called to the scene, however during that time the Google employee apparently backed off and did not photograph the community. There has been no word whether Google will attempt to photograph the area again in the future.
However, the company mantains it was not breaking the law, and said it does provide a method in which concerned citizens can have themselves or their property removed and/or blurred out in Street View searches.
Click here for a BBC interview with Paul Jacobs, the resident who apparently was the first to take on the Street View car driver. What do you think?