German court calls Google aerial imagery 'spying'

https://maps.googleblog.com/2008/05/street-view-revisits-man...

Almost overcome, actually not if precision were a requirement: the blur is over many false positives (especially alphanumeric data on buildings).

And there's a big difference in the other interests that have to be balanced against privacy. The only thing you lose by blurring faces or license plates is the ability to track individuals. You can still see a person's clothes and skin color, or the make and model of a car, and do useful research with it.

If you start doing it for homes it becomes a lot harder to track owner neglect, vandalism, squatting, illegally cutting trees, gentrification or changing aesthetic preferences. Even things like counting pools to estimate water usage.

While mostly harmless and cleared up in the end, this is the very definition of mass surveillance: a government agency looking into people's backyards without judge approval and without oversight. On that principle I have to agree with the ruling.

Germany's also currently ruled by paranoid control freaks, we know this because they already suspended the freedom of information act, also because it "enables spying".

O, those strategic taken pictures that hide the fact there is a large factor next door. Saves me a long drive. O, there is actually a main road / highway next to the property. Shit, a graveyard at not even 20m from the garden. Wait, is that a pig farm next door?!

Even caught a immo that was selling a "single detached haus". But inspected the areal pictures shows its bigger vs the pictures. Its was actually a double house (attached walls) in a inheritance dispute, where they have not even divided the land.

Immo: Come see, come see ... Told the immo to update his false advertisement, he kept refusing and very arrogantly mailing that he did nothing wrong. To this day, its still advertised as a single detached haus.

Hate how many immo are pieces of ** that deliberately take pictures from angles to hide issues, and wast peoples time (and money)! You can discover a LOT of issues when you get good at geolocating + google streetview/arial/3d view.

I hope they do not remove or ban it again in Germany, because its so extreme helpful tool vs the lying ** immo.

I understand the efficiency argument but efficiently applying a level of micromanagement that probably shouldn't be happening in the first place exist isn't exactly a win.

If he cared he would go after his local authorities.

https://www.geoportal.hessen.de/

I think he should put a large visible artwork in the yard, a blue port inspired creation, and then seek compensation for aerial photography on copyright grounds.

In Germany it's probably just more likely that your privacy is actually upheld by the law when push comes to shove (especially against privacy-invading companies).

I'm hoping and praying that not buying a subscription makes attribution 1% harder (because let's be real here everything is fingerprinted to the moo and back) puts me at the bottom of list of doors to knock on because (like everything else) they'll prioritize easier stuff and political will will be the bottleneck so they'll never get to the bottom of the list.