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Google recently photographed your house. It also probably snapped pictures of your workplace, school and maybe even you. Go take a look—it’s called Street View and it’s a new feature in the popular Google Maps service.

Here’s a video of how it works. Type an address or the name of a place into Google Maps and then click on the “Street View” box to view street-level photos of that location.

Street View Buffalo went active this summer, but judging from the gas prices (remember gas under $3 a gallon) and movie titles that can be seen, the pictures were taken in the summer of 2007. Google took the pictures by roaming the streets of Buffalo in a vehicle with a special panoramic camera attached to the roof—the gentleman in this picture, waiting for the bus on the Flint Loop, seems to have spotted the vehicle as it drove by. In this image, the local streets that Google has photographed are outlined in blue.

Intended to help travelers with directions and with planning activities around specific locations, the service has captured some unintended images. Web sites like Street View Sightings and Street View Fun have sprung up to highlight them. Street View also is provoking privacy concerns. One couple sued Google to have the photos of their house removed—of course, that only made the pictures of their house easier to find.

If you feel your space has been invaded or you come across an inappropriate photo, there’s no need to get litigious about it. Google has tried to make it easy to request that photos be removed.

Still, it’s a little creepy that I can see my cat on the front porch in some of the pictures of my house. We live in a voyeuristic surveillance society—chances are, you have been photographed recently at an ATM, a Bills game, a major intersection, in a store or elsewhere. To get a glimpse, check out BuffaloWebcam.com, which highlights some of the local public Web cams that are out there, and TrafficLand, a site that provides maps of traffic cameras nationwide, including Buffalo.

Privacy is a thorny issue these days, one that is hotly debated. For more information, the UB Libraries have many books on the topic.

Makes you wonder if the old saying “In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes” just doesn’t apply any more. These days, you’re lucky to get 15 minutes of anonymity.

—Charles Lyons, University Libraries