This has started earlier than I expected. American readers will be quite used to the idea that in many areas if you go to Google Maps you'll find pictures of the street as well as maps. Personally I think this is a good thing; only two days ago I was heading to a meeting, I had the address but the street was too small to be named on my map and a pic of the building would have been great. I can have that now.
Unless, of course, the new legal challenge takes off and becomes part of UK law. In which case Google will have to take down its photography, including the partial shot of my car (which, mercifully, was clean that day).
Thing is, they've already taken down one or two photos. The guy throwing up in Shoreditch High Street presumably complained as the photo has vanished (about a thousand Twitter types saw it yesterday). And of course some Google person or advanced bot has already gone through and moved identifiable car registration plates - all of them.
So we're left with a legal challenge about, what, the UK having the right to be behind the rest of the world in its technology? I'm not happy with this and I hope it fails. Nobody has ever claimed the UK isn't a few months behind America in terms of technical development. It used to be years, now it's months. But we've never held ourselves back deliberately before now.
