Google Street View - The Art of the Prank

July 12, 2014December 15, 2023

Google Street View Murder?

Pranking Google Is Fun, Until Cops Investigate You For Murder
by Sara Gates
The Huffington Post
June 3, 2014

Check this “murder” off as solved.

After a Google Street View user stumbled upon what looked like a murder scene last year, the user reported the sight to police, BBC News reports. Local authorities in Scotland, where the apparent axe murder was pictured, launched an investigation into the case to see if a crime had actually taken place.

As it turns out, the Google Street View “murder scene” from August 2012 was just a prank — and a pretty simple one, at that. Read more here.

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December 1, 2010December 15, 2023

Google Street Theater, Act II

Naked man in boot on German Google Street View
by A.Phillips
Business Review Europe
November 24, 2010

Google Street View has been launched in Germany after a lot of skepticism and protest from the German population

The launch has been like no other with images appearing of a woman apparently giving birth on a pavement and a naked man in the boot of a car next to what appears to be a dead dog.

The bizarre images have been removed by Google, who has revealed that they are under investigation; however the pictures in question have already made their way onto social media sites and forums and have sparked a wave on controversy and speculation.

A photograph taken in the Berlin suburb of Wilmersdorf captures a woman lying in the street after apparently giving birth while a kneeling man cradles a newborn baby.

However, popular debate suggests that the scene captured by Google”s street cars was almost certainly a prank. Continue reading “Google Street Theater, Act II”

October 24, 2010December 15, 2023

Google Street Theater

Italy vs. Google–from Street View to street theater?
by Edward Moyer
CNET News
October 23, 2010

Is Google’s Street View about to become a global forum for street theater?

It might be headed in that direction, if Italian officials get their way. According to a report, Italy has demanded that Google start giving people in that country three-days warning, via radio and newspapers, as to when its Street View cars will be roaming the stradas collecting images to plaster all over the Web.

The demand, picked up by PC Magazine from a report in La Stampa, is hardly surprising. As my colleague Chris Matyszczyk has pointed out, the Street View cars have captured plenty of strange imagery–dead bodies in Brazil, barfing Brits, ale-addled and outhoused Aussies. Not exactly stellar PR shots for the local tourist board or chamber of commerce. (And, as Matyszczyk has also noted, the Italians seem especially touchy about their worldwide reputation, even going so far as to target an innocent iPhone app for suggesting that–gasp–people might actually associate Italy with… the Mafia.)

Then, of course, there are the personal privacy concerns. Continue reading “Google Street Theater”