Angry British villagers block Google Street View car, incident captured on CCTV
By Thomas Ricker 
posted Apr 3rd 2009 6:51AM
posted Apr 3rd 2009 6:51AM
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May I suggest you come to England. If all I had to go on was Engadget's take of the place you'd think i had a CCTV camera installed in my room.
Oh n yes it does tend to rain, though most of the time it's overcast n threatening to rain but it means it makes the sunshine all the sweeter.
If it helps general media would have you thinking All American's area bunch of war mongering yokels with a combined IQ of 5, put far to much trust in Creationism, and are far too gun happy.
And don't have enough CCTV camera's :D
THE ALL SEEING EYE OF GOOGLE = ILLUMINATI
I'd rather have Google spy on me than the Governement.
Google can't kick in my door, arrest me and my family, seize my property and make me prove I bought it legitamately before I get it back, all based upon false information.
BTW Google street view will not look into your backyard.
Google Earth does that. And the Government.
@ Mycroft;:
I think the illegal wiretapping in the states which was largely achieved by the complacency of telecos would remind us that private information retained by companies is no worse that the government owning , and at times is the same thing.
Those wiretaps were splitters and just listened in on everything, and yes AT&T should be shunned and punished already, but that has nothing to do companies spying, it was as mentioned the government spying, they just using the infrastructure of a company.(illegally, with illegal permission of the management, granted)
(pronunciation: bak-wərd) LOLWHAT! :)
I would rather have neither spy on me. I think this is a good step forward for the British. Now they just need to kick their government's arse and they'll be well on their way.
@Mycroft:
"Google can't kick in my door, arrest me and my family, seize my property and make me prove I bought it legitamately before I get it back, all based upon false information."
...yet.
That picture vaguely and creepily reminds of Hot Fuzz.
I love that pic! :D
I like that pic too...
I just watched this story on BBC TV's lunchtime news. Broughton looks like a nice town and the residents who stopped the car sounded pretty pissed off. They apparently joined hands to block the car. But no pitchforks or burning torches...
Tha grea'er good!
Yarp.
Haha, invasion of privacy - this in the country where a quarter of the world's CCTV cameras exist and the population is obsessed with reality TV programs like Big Brother and I'm a Celebrity....
Just like any other well-developed country then...
@Lewis Beechey
Developed? Yes. But well?
@Lewis Beechley
I swear, the first time i read that I thought I saw "under-developed". Guess im just tired.
Ah yes, because reality TV programmes have everything to do with privacy.
This country has serious, SERIOUS privacy issues, and they desperately need to be addressed, but reality TV? Make arguments like that and they'll laugh you out of wherever the hell you've managed to get your voice heard.
The nations not so blest as thee,
Must in their turn to tyrants fall,
Must in their turn to tyrants fall;
While thou shalt flourish, shalt flourish great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.
Oh the irony! I think Google would have performed this country a service by running these nutters down. The biggest threat to our privacy isn't Google, it's Wacky Jaqui Smith.
A note to potential American tourists - if you come to Britain, don't mind the CCTV, it's just like those cameras on the rollercoasters at Disneyland. On your way out of the country you get the option of buying action photos of yourself sipping tea, hunting foxes and engaging in other British pursuits.
Except that fox hunting is illegal.
Can we still make funny faces at the cameras when we drive by?
Fox hunting isn't illegal, as long as you kill the vermin in a humane way, rather than let the dogs tear him up, for example shoot the beggar!
Broughton is not a village, it's a suburb of the city of Milton Keynes; it's named after a historic "affluent" village, but many people who live there still claim it is one.
I bet the people who illegally stop Google taking pictures from the public highway, are the same kind of people who claim they live in "Broughton village" rather than accepting that they live in a suburb of Milton Keynes and put incorrectly "Broughton, Buckinghamshire" as their address too.
Lol, to an American (like myself), that second paragraph sounds like British humor.
I mean: Rahahaha, bloody good, old chap!
I live in Harborne, a pretty affluent - and pretty central - suburb of Birmingham. At some point in the last 10 years, the 'Welcome to Harborne' signs changed to 'Welcome to Harborne Village'.
Soon, when you land at Heathrow or step off a ferry at Portsmouth, there'll be signs reading 'Welcome to Great Britain Village.'
@Frostblade10
Typical dumb American I see, how about you visit England and indulge in what we like to call culture.
Errr... Frostblade10. Does Buckinghamshire sound like "British humor" to you? OK, just for you...
It's like people who live in Greenwich Village in New York claiming that they live in a small town and not in a suburb of New York, or saying that Sana Monica is a seaside town and is not an LA suburb after all.
In the UK villages are often perceived to be nicer places to live than suburbs and have more "affluent" (i.e. got more money) people living there -- therefore they have a higher snob value, especially by those living in the suburbs. Ironically the people living in the suburbs who claim their locale is a "village" probably couldn't hack living in a real one.
One of my Mrs' friends is a total snob and does similar things, she lives in a suburb of a large town but writes the address of a nearby village as the TOWN/CITY on her address -- as it "looks better" -- and relies on the postcode to get it delivered to the right place.
Nick, forget nationality, you just sound like a typical dumbass.
Well, to be perfectly fair, no sane person will readily admit to living in Milton Keynes
err-
Vanillacide, I know you aren't American, but you sound like a typical condescending European (of course others on here sound like typical obnoxious Americans, so whatever). Perhaps you should delve into American usage of the word suburb before ripping someone a new one for misunderstanding your post. No one would ever call Greenwich Village a suburb. It's a neighborhood in Manhattan (a BUROUGH of New York City). There is nothing village like about it, it's just left over from when the British first ripped it out of the Dutch hands, and it was actually a seperate village. It has been part of Manhattan (legally, not just geographically) for hundreds of yearsNo one thinks it is actually a quaint New England Village like Keene, New Hampshire or something. It's part of the largest city in America. Suburbs are seperate entities from the cities which they are near to. I for instance , live in Stamford CT, which most would argue is actually a suburb of New York City. Only in very isolated cases are the suburbs in any way legally attached to the central city (Indianapolis comes to mind) I know that in Australia at least (and apparently England, from your post, but any time I have been there I haven't heard it used as such) suburbs are actually legally part of the city which they are near.
As for Santa Monica, shock of all shockers, it is BOTH! It is a suburb of LA (and not part of the city, although in the same county) and a seaside town. The concept of suburb is by definition blurry, somewhere between city and small town, and sometimes rural.
As for your mail example, that may hold true in the UK, but if someone addressed a letter to someone living in Yonkers (a suburb just north of New York City) as to New York, NY they would never get it.
The point of this complete rambling is that although Nick might have been uninformed about the UK, you appear to be equally uninformed about the US. Maybe instead of making fun of each other and being rude (this goes for you to Nick), we could actually inform each other about the differences between ourselves and our most important ally.
"you sound like a typical condescending European", that's rude. "Maybe instead of making fun of each other and being rude", maybe you should follow your own suggestion. ;)
Okay, I only thought of Greenwich Village because of the "village" part, and by the modern American definition of suburb it's probably not -- but Google "Greenwich Village suburb" and you get plenty of hits.
Thanks for sharing your definition of American suburbs but isn't this post about a British one? And wasn't I explaining with examples the British definition of suburb? But Wackypedia helps here: "In the United States suburb usually refers to a separate municipality, borough, or unincorporated area outside a town or city. In Ireland and the United Kingdom, suburb merely refers to residential areas outside the city centre, regardless of administrative boundaries."
I don't see that it's relevant that incorrectly addressed mail won't get to it's destination in the USA when I was trying to explain the snobbery of my wife's friend.
"I don't see that it's relevant that incorrectly addressed mail won't get to it's destination in the USA when I was trying to explain the snobbery of my wife's friend."
.I think you both did fairly well at describing how snobbery isn't exactly tied to one country alone and help explain how all this nationality angst is stupid.
They are just places to live! Quit bickering over it being a suburb, town, village, borough, alley, or hole in the wall.
@Vanillacide
You know you're only getting a high rank because of your British accent, right? ;-)
Hi, I'm from Stamford too. Let's be friends.
Something tells me the collective opinion of the Broughton people had little to do with the overall CCTV coverage in Europe Thomas. If they don't want the googlemobile in their town, so be it.
Well done for being the first person to spot the difference between public domain infp and restricted access info. The rest of you: try harder.
I don't disagree with your logic, because that's close to what I thought... "Just because the townspeople could not stop a government from imposing surveillance cameras does not mean that the townspeople now want to invite all scrutiny from any camera."
But, the bigger question is, what privacy is being intruded? If it helps, maybe google should announce their camera will be passing by so the townspeople can stay inside during the few minutes it takes as the car passes. The house is already mostly public domain... it is not cloaked. the people are not so much in the publc domain because you generally control how you interact in the world, and change actions accordingly...
It's not the house they object to being photographed, is it? It's themselves, right? So stay the heck away from the car, and no photo of you will be possible.
The police let the Google car go about it's business, so it must not be illegal...
Yes but those CCTVs aren't available to the public aren't they?
I somewhat agree with what they are saying
I wouldn't want a stranger taking pictures of my house and uploading them to the internet..
Then you'd better erect a fence. You have no expectation of privacy regarding the front of your house. Any one can photograph it at any time, from public property (the street).
I can go online to the tax assessor's website and get a picture of almost any house in my state.
If your tax assessor doesn't have a website, go down to town/city hall and they'll do the same for you, but might charge $1.25 or something for the print.
I came in to make that comment and was beaten to it.
Perfectly acceptable remark that ruins the entire argument...
this was one hilariously written article, good job mr. ricker
Seconded. Thank you for finally showing what a bunch of idiots these people are. Everyone else seems to be saying "well, I guess they have a point." No, they don't. They kept someone from taking legal pictures on a public thoroughfare. The front of your house, however twee your little village or however privileged you fancy yourself, is not private.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/beds/bucks/herts/7980737.stm
The actual BBC article, rather than this hype. They were annoyed by the idea of thieves using the pictures to aid them into breaking into houses, not that I think it really makes sense but just because here in the UK there are CCTV camera's in town and city centres that doesn't mean we have them staring in people's houses and those images aren't generally available to the public which Google street maps is.
I guess because the govt. in the US can read anyones e-mail and listen in to any phone call, that means you all happily hand out copies of all the e-mails you send and recordings of all your personal phone calls ... I didn't think so.
What does that have to do with anything? These houses are in public view, no privacy violation.
I get the impression that you think that the ludicrous amount of CCTV installed in our country is just fine?
Dan, it's hardly as bad as you non-UK people seem to think. It's not like the streets are littered with CCTV cams, it ain't like they're pointing right into our houses or following our individual movements.
As much as they get criticized, they have in fact helped with a lot of crime cases. It's just a shame the police rely so much on them instead of getting of their backsides and doing their job properly.
Hmm, it seems you may be from the UK ("our country" etc.)
Still, my point stands.