Wouldn’t it be funny if everyone did that, making Street View completely useless lol
this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2025
291 points (97.1% liked)
Today I Learned
20981 readers
755 users here now
What did you learn today? Share it with us!
We learn something new every day. This is a community dedicated to informing each other and helping to spread knowledge.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rules (interactive)
Rule 1- All posts must begin with TIL. Linking to a source of info is optional, but highly recommended as it helps to spark discussion.
** Posts must be about an actual fact that you have learned, but it doesn't matter if you learned it today. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.**
Rule 2- Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That's it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding non-TIL posts.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-TIL posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.
If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.
Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.
Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.
Partnered Communities
You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.
Community Moderation
For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Google Street View wasn't updated for 15 years in Germany because of that. There was a huge drama when it was first announced and people were scared it would be used by criminals to scout buildings, leading to everyone blurring their houses. It got so bad that Google basically just gave up.
I remember looking up an address in 2020, only to find out that the house didn't even exist yet on the capture from 2008 lol.
Man I like germany because people care about privacy
You have no idea how many times I heard "but I have nothing to hide" in germany.
We're still protected, but the public opinion on it was successfully shifted
load more comments
(7 replies)
In the geoguessr community, Germany is commonly referred to as "Blurmany" because so many buildings are blurred
Food delivery scammers will often do this and blur out their whole street. That way, when they report to their Uber Eats that they never got their order, the support team can't compare the driver's delivery photo to anything and will usually refund the meal because of it.
Nick Fuentes did this last year when he assaulted a woman who knocked on his door.
Of course, it's not hard to figure out what building is in-between numbers 1824 and 1828...
Don't leave us hanging, what building is in between?
The one that smells like a piece of Nazi shit.
Does Google require proof you live there and give that info to the cookie monster that powers its profits??
Am I too paranoid at this point?
Google already knows where you live.
The data scraping came from inside the house
How does Google know where I live?
Posted on a Google Pixel 9 Pro
Feels like the Streisand effect would apply
Exactly. Everyone in Scotland knows what town former prime minister Gordon Brown lives in. Thanks to Google Maps, we know the exact address. It's the only blurred-out house.
Remember, you still live in the location, so you can always step outside to see your home if you need a reminder of its appearance
Lol
The method is... too simple? So anyone can blur anyones anything?
It's also just dumb that imagery taken from a street isn't doing anything privacy-invading or illegal yet they still feel the need to coddle paranoid NIMBYs. Street View can sometimes be useful for OSM, since you might've been there but forgotten to document something, are too far away, etc. Street View as a concept works to the public's benefit, although Google owning it and it being proprietary isn't good. I can see this removal feature being a good thing by probably one out of every thousand times it's actually used, namely in the case that you have some kind of stalker (even then, though, satellite view 99% of the time would give you a concerning amount of info compared to Street View).
A scammer will use an image of your house for a rental ad. They will have a locksmith change the locks and rent the house out to an unsuspecting family. Then you have to evict them to get your house back.
So the scammer could save the trouble of taking their own photo?
A little difficult to take a photo from nigeria.
You think someone in Nigeria is able to change the locks and evict someone from their home in another country? I'll have some of whatever you're smoking.
You can call a local locksmith and tell them a story and they might go for it.
Yeah, I have a hard time seeing a way that one can really do a while lot to create privacy issues with Google Street View.
There just isn't anything else to really combine the data with that exposes data that otherwise was private, or issues created by the scale.
Maybe if Google could one day use the database to identify a location from a photo, but then it's not really the Street View service at issue.
Let's not forget anyone can fly light weight quadcopters and planes with cameras on them within the boundaries of private property. Most aviation authorities around the world are in control of air space, and that air space in most countries starts a micron above the ground. And therefore it's perfectly legal for anyone to fly something within the boundaries of your property. Now you could get into trouble for being a peeping Tom, aggravation, etc depending on the circumstance. But nothing can be done if someone was to do a quick fly over.
In my opinion blurring out street view only protects you against the 'script kiddies' of the stalking/spying world.
One thing about blurring in street view. Once it's done, it cannot be undone. So I'd have consideration for others before going ahead with making a request.
Yeah, I'm surprised they don't at least verify your address.
we should blur everything
Pretty much the state of gmaps in Germany already.
hell yes i love making things on the internet super annoying to use
We need to get a group of houses in the shape of a penis to all blur there house's
Time to penis -- 2:18
I've also heard it's a one way street (dad pun) - meaning it's not reversible
wow this specific building must be loaded with valuables
Deleted
Houses are meant for living. Fuck property value.
If you're selling your house, the real estate agent will take photos of the house from every angle, the only reason to be on street view is to look at the rest of the neighborhood.
I don't believe it would lower the value of the property by any significant amount.
It also draws attention and could make you a target. Like, I disdain the whole "what do you have to hide" fallacy, but that's the impression that'd be broadcast to anyone who sees your place on streetview if you were to blur it out.
This is the first one I thought of, someone who may not even be interested in your property will look at that, and wonder what you're hiding.
Then they get to my house and go " Ohhhh a shitty looking house, that's what you were hiding"
In a country where housing is being sold at 150%+ of asking price this is completely irrelevant. So many paper millionaires are one step away from homelessness because property values are out of control.
Deleted
The reason you need permits and licensed contractors to do most work on your home is because most people would rather have something convenient and cheap then care about property values. Take an inspector to a random open house in your neighborhood and ask them how much stuff they find wrong and use that to see if the owner will lower the price of the house. Then watch how quickly you get laughed out because they already have half a dozen offers over asking price, which is probably already inflated as is. The housing market in America is a joke since COVID.