For the Stalker in all of us

cwilliams — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 20:11:36 +0000

Browsing around del.icio.us I stumbled across a… unique GoogleMapHack. Yes, that’s right HotOrNot + GoogleMaps. Now anyone can browse anonymous photos of people by their zipcodes. I know Google Maps has terms of service that essentially say you’re not allowed to use private information about private citizens. I think what Google is really trying to get at is that they don’t want maps pointing out people’s addresses. So the questions is: Since these people posted their picture and zipcode (perhaps even more) to HotOrNot – should the information be considered public?

Also, what if someone decided to make a mashup of say… property tax records, or the White Pages, with Google Maps so that you could instantly lookup where someone lives by their name? Would this be useful or just plain scary? Maybe we’d be a lot less likely to list ourselves (and a lot more likely to complain to our local governments not to allow landowner info out to just anyone).

Late to the Party: For the Stalker in all of us

For the Stalker in all of us