Google’s Street view had been problematic for some countries, especially Canada, The United Kingdom, Greece, and Japan. Although it’s been a problem in those countries, it has made its way into the United States despite the issues. A lot of the problems that occurred in the countries were based on the privacy of others due to privacy laws. Google made claims that the faces and license plates are blurred, but at first Canada was not happy with how they went about it. According to Cory Doctorow, he said that it was a big problem when it came to the area that he lived in, because people would be able to tell who he was just by the surroundings and his bodily description and not just his face. Germany had people put up stickers for Google to not take pictures of their houses and Greece had a dispute where lawyers had to be called because Street view had been banned and Google wanted to make their way through with specific restrictions. Japan even had to make it so that Google had to aim their cameras lower when going through the streets of Japan to protect those in the country and their privacy. In this Case Analysis I will argue that utilitarianism shows that Google should have listened to the people instead of just claiming to only blur out faces and license plates.

                Informational friction is a flow of information in a region of the infosphere that’s opposed by some force and is connected with enough effort to obtain information, filter it, or block it from other agents within a certain environment. When that happens, the informational friction either increases, decreases, or changes its shape. If there’s a group of people that live in the same house, the concept states that the more that they know about one another, the smaller the informational gap is between them. If the gap is larger, then they don’t know each other that well. It relies on the degree of accessibility with the info of the people. If their personal information is easily able to be accessed, then informational gap tends to be smaller. An example of this kind of gap would be that if there’s little room between rooms and bathrooms. When the informational friction either decreases or increases, the amount of privacy is also changing in the same ways.

                With this kind of concept and using it to analyze the current situation with Google Street View and the privacy of others, it would seem to work in a way that explains how just using blurs wouldn’t be enough to satiate the public. Having Google images be the way that it was in the case, it would cause the informational friction to be rather small because it basically makes things feel open to everyone and people are able to just look upon others’ lives. With the countries being spoken about, it would feel that Google would be causing much discomfort to the countries and it was the reason why they were so adamant on preventing Google from taking images of the areas in the country. It shows that in the case, there are people that would be easily recognizable due to distinct features and if they were to be found out doing something that they wouldn’t want anyone to know about, the degree of accessibility would become much larger and cause the informational gap to change shape whereas if Google would refrain from doing these, it would keep the gap at a larger portion, thus allowing the people to live their lives without fear of their privacy being broken into.

                If Google were to think of utilitarian ways and think of the people and their informational friction, the ways of their actions would have been much different. When utilitarianism comes to informational friction, it gives the people the benefit because it will give them hope that their privacy will not be broken. The countries thought in a utilitarian way by trying to make sure that Google would either use a stronger blurring system to make it harder to identify people and areas or make Google just not take images for the sake of their people. Although it would be harder to find things based on appearance with maps, it would let the people have their privacy and keep the informational gap large, thus not disturbing the peace of privacy. When it comes to being a utilitarian, Google needs to think about others and their privacy so the degree of accessibility doesn’t become a problem and set the entire country into panic. It would cause a major disruption among the people due to everyone believing that their houses may be broken into or they might have been caught doing something they do in private and don’t want their personal lives getting out to others for the sake of their sanity.

                Grimmelmann’s concept of Facebook users don’t care about privacy shows that the people of Facebook have a let-it-all-hang-out kind of attitude. People who use Facebook don’t know any sense of privacy and they have no shame in what they say or do when it comes to the website.  The concept explains that people show off anything and everything, including dirty photos of themselves. He states that the public is stained with public exposure from reality tv shows, so their first instinct is to document everything they do without regards to privacy and the consequences that come from it. Facebook users claim to care about their own privacy due to a few features that Mark Zuckerberg added to Facebook because Facebook seems to give ads based on what you’ve looked at on your computer or phone. The main privacy matter though to the people is when they find out that strangers, relatives, coworkers, and possibly the police are looking through their profiles. Teens who put fake ages on their profiles also make privacy basically nonexistent because of strangers looking through their profiles, they may also change certain things on their profiles. It gives them an opportunity to talk about their parents in secret. According to Grimmelmann, although they care about their privacy, they still perform such actions.

                Using the concept of Facebook users not caring about their privacy to analyze the Google Street View case, it would seem that Google believes that the people are just like Facebook users. They will still blur out faces and license plates, but it will still give out what people are doing and breaching their privacy. People want their privacy but Google believes that they don’t care if it’s breached due to what gets shown on the social media platform. Facebook shows that people will post anything and everything online, regardless of breaking their own privacy wall, yet the people of the platform want full privacy when it comes to Google Street View as well as Facebook itself. The way that Facebook users are, that being stained with reality tv shows, make it harder for Google to make the decision to listen to the countries if they’re always posting every little thing they do. If Google were to consider not doing things in the same fashion as Facebook, privacy could be handled much differently and in a better sense. Blurring faces and licenses is only just slightly better than what Facebook does, but it still is considered a breach of privacy.

                Facebook doesn’t really follow the utilitarian path and with Grimmelmann’s concept, it makes them seem against it. Facebook takes your history and gives you ads based on it, which can break privacy. With that kind of ability, Google Street View would cause more problems than it had already within the case. It would cause many places to create an uproar of emotions from their privacy breach and the entire world would be against Google just like people were against Mark Zuckerberg. Google should think in a utilitarian fashion and look upon things that work best for others to ensure the privacy of the people isn’t basically nonexistent like it is on Facebook. If a utilitarian were to be the face of Facebook and Google Maps, there would be a lot of different ways to keep the privacy of the people in good enough shape for people to not have to worry about it.

                Google Street View should think about others and not try to breach into their privacy. The best thing to do in this kind of sense is to ask the head of the country to provide a poll within the lands to see what the majority vote would be in the sense of the views. Google should either not bother with the countries and their privacy laws and just leave the areas be or they should think of another way that can benefit everyone in terms of privacy. If Google were to object the cases and go on without caring about the safety of the people, we would probably be down a huge search engine and we would probably be using Bing due to the backlash of privacy concerns. When working on street images without the consent of the people it turns into a mess that can go way beyond just being sued like they were previously by a couple in Pennsylvania. When Google has a way that works within the utilitarian path, it will be given the opportunity to peacefully perform their actions when they can and do things without any problems. Google must pay attention to privacy laws if they wish to not become another Facebook with their privacy breaking ways.