I’m having a hard time controlling my excitement about the newest enhancements to Google Earth. Try to restrain yourselves, this news is shocking. Google has added oceans to Google Earth. And you can time travel. Oh, and they added Mars. As in the planet. Sounds more like Google SciFi to me. Whatever you want to call it, Google is making a big deal about the new Google Earth. And while the new oceans and Mars explorations are neat, I don’t see the major functionality changes that will make Google Earth the powerhouse it could be.

Google is getting ready to launch their Street View technology in the UK, and it isn’t being met with open arms. Although the mapping tool is already in place in some major US cities, folks in the UK are protesting the implementation on their turf. Street View works by taking photos of, logically enough, streets to match maps. However the photos also include any people on those streets. This is where the problems come in for the UK folk. They feel this is a blatant disregard for privacy; and that permission should be granted by any individual photographed since the pictures are being used in a commercial regard.

Personally, I don’t see how Google is getting away with this. As a freelance photographer myself, I know that any photographs that I take (even in a public setting) must have release forms signed by each recognizable person in the photo, if I am to be using them in any way for profit. (They even consider a person to be “recognizable” if the photo only shows the back of them for the record.) Apparently, Privacy International, a UK rights group, agrees. They believe the technology clearly breaks data protection laws.