The introduction of Google Street View has given us the opportunity to engage in virtual exploration, handle business concerns from afar, and gain a bird’s eye view of locations thousands of miles away. A big selling element is how well it depicts faraway places like neighborhoods, houses, street architecture, businesses, and the ease of getting from one place to another. Although Google claims to have addressed most of the concerns raised by users throughout the globe, the service has nonetheless generated much debate and criticism. Some of the major concerns are the following: the use of personally identifiable information, the lack of control users have over whether or not their properties are featured, the time it takes for content to be removed after a user contacts Google, the cultural sensitivity of property privacy, the underrepresented population’s potential ignorance of privacy violations, and the lack of information Google provides about what protecting people’s privacy looks like. In this Case Analysis, I will argue using the contractarianism tool that Google should have polled city and town inhabitants to make sure a large proportion of them provide their informed agreement for their communities to be included on Google Street View.

A key concept that Floridi highlights, which is at the heart of Google Street View, is the premise that global digital towns are more complicated and intrusive than little villages. In the excerpt provided by Vaidhyanathan, for instance, Osamu Higuchi complains to Google about how its Street View imagery of metropolitan areas in Japan was insulting and showed a lack of respect for culture and privacy. While residents of these communities may be familiar with one another, know what their neighbors’ day-to-day activities are like, and have a general concept of the appearance of their homes and yards, they nonetheless respect the privacy of their neighbors by not sharing such images publicly.

Meanwhile, in the global digital community, people from all over the world utilize the internet, each with their own unique reasons for accessing and making use of Street View’s material. This opens people up to open scrutiny and judgment by making their dwellings public. Contractualism would help Google improve its business culture and formulate a long-term strategy. Contractualism will put Google in a position where should the tables be turned and the public wish to place surveillance on them, they will be able to say “no, we would like to opt-out” before we monitor their every move and later give them the option to dispute the contents, should they have any reason to dispute them. Instead of rushing to the next invention and dealing with implications later, as Christopher Graham of the United Kingdom points out, Google should consider the potential effects of its actions beforehand. Deontology shows that Google street view is good because it has good consequences. In order to overcome these restrictions, you can use the Google Maps environment. It’s possible to merge the two types of maps into one with Google’s personalized maps. Users may add data layers to these individualized cartographic maps and then utilize the available style and drawing tools to highlight relevant trends or provide necessary context. Researchers will have an easier time comprehending the context of the sketch map thanks to the direct correlation between the two sets of data. In this way, deontology tool favors this.

Floridi’s emphasis on how agents relate to data helps us understand why certain users may feel powerless over the information about them that circulates online. Vaidhyanathan raises the issue that not everyone has ready access to the internet; as a result, such individuals may never learn that photos of them or their loved ones have been shared widely over the web. Someone may not even notice for a long time that their image or private property is on Street View. If embarrassing photos have already been widely shared or their privacy has been severely compromised, they may be unable to undo the damage by the time they find out about the problem. Even though Google claims to be able to remove or obscure anything that has been challenged on Street View, there is no telling who has seen it, how many digital copies have been generated or the potential harm it may do in the future. Everybody knows that once anything is posted online, it can’t be taken down without significant effort, since there are always other people who will gladly copy it. Privacy advocates have raised concerns about Google’s Street View because it shows people leaving gay bars, protesters outside an abortion clinic, people on the beach in bikinis, cottagers in public parks, people picking up prostitutes, and people engaging in other activities that are visible from public land. In a contractarian society, everyone, even Google, would have a say in how things are run, without having to jump through hoops to challenge each other and establish an unfair system.

Concerns about privacy in Google Street View rely heavily on Grimmelmann’s paradox of privacy. According to Peter Barron, Google expected Street View’s outcomes to generate more alarm and fury than they did. He also finds it incredible that people are worried about Google’s Street View cameras spying on their neighborhoods and communities, given the widespread use of surveillance cameras in the United Kingdom. To Google, the problem lies with individuals not caring enough and becoming habituated to a lack of privacy, rather than with the loss of privacy being a structural issue inside the government and huge companies that has been pushed onto people. People would be more sensitive to the issue of protecting their personal data and less inclined to accept Google’s Street View or a(low Google cars to wander the streets to record in the first place if they had the resources to do so. Google has been transparent about the strategies it employed to win over governments. Thus, they tricked nations into believing that they were providing them with special treatment, respecting citizens’ right to privacy, and allowing for the removal of previously released material upon request.

The existing privacy framework at Google is making it impossible for people to express themselves freely. Assuming Google made it possible for users to take precautions before posting sensitive information online, this would result in a more equitable society in which individuals were more confident in their ability to make their own judgments and express themselves without fear of repercussion. Grimmelmann argues that this organizational setup would force Google to take responsibility for developing its own product security framework. Any municipality that chooses to participate in Google Street View may rest certain that Google will stand behind the veracity of the released material and will be held responsible for any infractions of the agreement. The law may allow Google to take pictures in different countries, but it cannot give the company license to invade people’s privacy. There is little doubt that Google’s provided panoramic photographs include local residents, buildings, and activities. However, as contractarianism demonstrates, it is impossible to provide every possible good or service to every possible person at the same time. There would be less development and riches if there were no disparity in income, and there would be no political action if everyone had the same amount of political influence. From our original position of ignorance, we would want to err on the side of caution and settle for as much disparity as was necessary to ensure that the poorest among us continued to get help.

In conclusion, contractarianism shows that instead of relying solely on permission from national leaders, Google could ethically deploy its Street View service by getting consent from people and working cooperatively to achieve common goals. Some people may claim that Google Street View has been incredibly useful to them in many different ways, while others may dispute this. In order to get a feel for how close my hotel will be to attractions and restaurants, I always check the map using Street View before booking a hotel. On top of that, I am in the midst of a house hunt because I am shortly moving to a different state. Due to my lack of familiarity with the region, I have found Street View to be an invaluable tool for exploring potential neighborhoods and inspecting the outsides of potential homes. If a given area’s people opted out of having Street View, I wouldn’t be too bothered that my own needs and preferences had to come at the price of someone else’s privacy. One potential problem with the way I propose Google conducts voting is the question of whose side Google should choose in the event of a tie. If Google were operating under a contractarian tenet, it would probably refrain from rolling out Street View in that area to avoid offending anybody.