When I typed in my address on Google Street View, I wasn’t expecting a picture of my house to show up, but rather just a picture of the street, hence the name Google Street View. When I realized that you could zoom into a specific house, I immediately made sure to zoom into every aspect of my house, and searched every window and door to make sure that nobody or any part of the inside of my house was visible. To my relief even with the limit reached on the zoom button, you cannot see anybody near my house and you cannot see the inside of my home either.

However if Google Street View had unfortunately caught a picture of me or the inside of my house, then I might have considered taking legal action. I do not see how taking a picture of somebody and then posting it on the internet for the public to view, without the consent of the person or anybody in the house can be seen as legal. Even with the person's face blurred out, I'm sure you can make out whether the person is a 40 year old man or a toddler based on their body size. Also, if you happen to know the person well, and know what clothes they usually wear, you can easily make out who the person is. Basically, blurring out somebody’s face does not really help if you know the person.

Although I cannot see how Google’s actions can be seen as legal, and even though I do not know the Canadian laws for privacy, I'm sure that Google Street View is not be breaking any laws with their application, since they are taking their pictures on public space and blurring out faces and license plates (I could be wrong). I realize that Google is actually trying to make an effort to protect people’s privacy by blurring out these things, but I also think there are many more things that Google can do to ensure that the privacy of the people they are photographing is protected. For example, if Google wants to take pictures of a neighbourhood for example, they could at least get the majority of the neighbourhood's approval before taking pictures of the neighbourhood and Google should notify people that they have the right to remove the image of their house or the image of themselves from the internet.

I must admit that I do find Google’s Street View to be interesting and I do use it sometimes and it proves to be extremely helpful. Although, I do not use it for stalker purposes, (I DON'T), I use it when I am going to an unfamiliar place so I can familiarize myself with the surroundings and see the environment, therefore I can make sure that I am in the right place so I don't get lost. In this way Google Street View can be used for good. If you think of all the good possibilities that this application could be used for the list could go on for a while, so I realize that Google did make this application with good intentions.

Although, if you think of all the bad things Google Street View can be used for, I think the list would be longer. If a criminal was planning to break into a house, they could use the Street View application to zoom into every aspect of the house they plan to break into, and work out a plan to get in and out of the house unnoticed. Therefore, this would make it much easier for the criminal to execute their crime successfully. There is also the prospect of seeing something you weren't supposed to see, such as someone helping their sibling after they had sneaked out, like in the picture above, the parents of those children would be quite mad if they saw that. Or perhaps if you are a stalker, you could look up the address of your victim's house and zoom into their windows to and try to see in their home. There is also privacy concerns as mentioned above, and many other instances where Google Street View can be used for not so good purposes, so as I said before the list can go on and on.
In conclusion, I do not think Google Street View is entirely bad. I have somewhat mixed feelings on the situation, but I do not think that they should shut down the application, seeing as it can be very helpful, so in a way I do agree with what they have done. I do have some suggestions that could potentially make the application better for everyone. Google could blur out entire bodies, material possessions, and basically things that aren't part of the natural environment. This way people would feel more secure and probably more content with the application. Also, as I said before Google could consult neighbourhoods before taking pictures and get the majorities consent, in order to start taking pictures of the neighbourhood. I realize that this may be tedious, but I'm almost positive that it would gain Google more customers and less people would have issues with the application.