In the article “The Googleization of Everything,” the consequences of Google Street View’s exposure of people’s private spaces are covered by the author, Sira Vaidhyanathan. As explained in the text, a person may suffer significant harm if their private property, such as their driveway, backyard, or automobile license plate, are exposed. A great example that was given is an encounter with a harassing coworker at work. With the help of Google Street View, the coworker can pinpoint your exact home address and visualize the street that you live on. The complaints go on because many commenters claim that Google Street View is too intrusive for comfort and that the service doesn’t clearly delineate between public and private areas. If you are known to drive a white car with orange stripes in a small town, blurring your face is not the only element that distinguishes your identity. In this case analysis l will argue that deontology shows that google should have obtained permission or consent from people living in private properties before photographing. 

When we hear Facebook, we all know it is a social media network that connects people through an online platform. People use Facebook in complicated ways sometimes leading to privacy problems. A central concept that James Grimmelmann discussed in his “Privacy as product safety” article is that, exposing one’s privacy can cause a lot of damage to their reputation. An example used to explain this was the education major who lost her teaching placement and her degree after a photo of her as a drunken pirate went across Facebook gaining the attention of her school superintendent. She didn’t consent to this photo being taken and shared all over the internet and as a result her reputation as a professional has been destroyed and her livelihood damaged. Another concept Grimmelmann explains is the notion that exposing one’s privacy can lead them in serious legal trouble. The author provided information concerning law enforcement people who scroll social media convicting people with what they say online.

These concepts Grimmelmann provides correlate with the ethical concerns with Google Street View because unconsented photos taken of private properties could damage the person’s reputation. Depending on what they are doing which the Google Street View photo is being taken, private action of the owners while in the photos are posted on the internet for all to see. As mentioned prior how law enforcement at times scroll the internet and social media, Google Street View might be one of the places they monitor. With Google Street View law enforcement can monitor people without proper permission to do so. Even worse, regular people can also stalk people without your consent. There are a lot of possibilities of wrong doings that can occur with the photo of private properties on Google Street View which speaks to the ethical concerns.

In the ethical lense of deontology, the theory states that one could do something that results in good thing but was motivated by a bad reason. This is similar to google street view because it’s a useful tool for community design and streetscape projects, it’s allows designers to see a neighborhood scene more or less from eye level perspective. It also provides users with an eyesight view of an area without having to be there physically. These are the benefits deontology speaks of, but their motivation was the lack of consent when taking pictures of private properties. The bad reason was the lack of notice given to owners of the property when photographing. It is very impolite to photograph peoples living spaces without their knowledge.This can lead to embarrassing pictures of them circulating on the internet.With deontology in mind and the concepts discussed by Grimmelmann the ethical way to implement google street view would be to get consent  from the people living in the area before photographing their properties. Bad reputations or embarrassing photos of property can be avoided, law enforcement cannot use Google Street View as a means of conviction and the streets can be photographed with everyone on the same page. This eliminates the bad motivation and reasoning that allows its benefits to shine.

From the article “Privacy: Informational Fiction’’ the author Luciano Floridi describes the concept of anonymity. He defined it as the unavailability of personal information on a person, due to the difficulty of collecting or correlating different bits of information about that person. Anonymity is a condition in which the identity of an individual subject is not known to researchers. In the reading he stresses the fact that anonymity is important because it is our human right to keep our information private. Another concept mentioned in the article was the ownership-based interpretation. This concept states that privacy needs to be respected because everyone has rights to bodily security and property security. Ownership based interpretation is based around seeing privacy as a natural right and his or her information is exclusive to them. As a result, a privacy breach is considered an intrusion of their personal information.

Luciano Floridi concept of anonymity is being violated by Google Street View currently because it makes personal information available to the public. Private property owners are no longer in control of the kind of pictures being posted online of their property. For example, a owner might have a messy front yard he/she does not want the public to see of their property yet he has no control of the image posted. In addition, anonymity further violated because private property information is being made available online to various researchers. The next concept of ownership-based interpretation has a similar correlation because in accordance with the concept the privacy of the private property owners is being violated. Their property security is not respected by Google Street View which poses ethical concern. Since the concept of privacy is linked to natural rights according to the text, the private property owner’s natural rights are being violated as well.  Google Street View is committing a privacy breach by photographing personal properties and the surrounding location.

With deontology in mind, as stated by Kant even though there are some benefits of Google Street View as mentioned above, their actions to set up the program and upload content is bad, so it is immoral. The public should have opted to be a part of the Google Street View plan rather than just shut out, neglect their consent, and facilitate their program. Proper permission should have been obtained because it was their responsibility to ensure the private information is protected. The ethical way to preserve  anonymity of private property is by making residents sign a participation waiver.

In closing google street view is a service that offers a 360-degree view of streets all over the world. Google street view is a useful tool for community design and streetscape projects, it allows designers to see a neighborhood scene more or less from eye level perspective. It also provides users with an eye sight view of an area without having to be there physically. Due to allegations that it violated the privacy of residents in the location where the images are taken, the service is controversial. The reason is because Google Street view takes unconsented photos of private properties could damage the people reputation. Another complaint about google street view is that it can be used to stalk people because private addresses are displayed. Next Google Street view violated the laws of anonymity because personal property information is shared with researchers and the public. Lastly ownership-based interpretation talks about property security being respected by Google Street View which poses ethical concern. In all this case analysis l argued that deontology shows that google should have obtained permission or consent from people living in private properties before photographing. A drawback pertaining to this argument stems from private property owners who don’t really mind Google Street View photographing their homes. The privacy concern might not be severe for all owners, but they should at least be given the chance to make the choice as to whether they want their properties to be photographed or not.