Minnesota town tells Google to wipe it off the map

Don't map my backyard, screamed the little Minnesota town of North Oaks when people there realized Google had been sending its shady mapping vans through the town's private roadways. You sort of have to appreciate North Oaks' old-fashioned impulse not to have unwanted pictures of itself all over the Internet.

Sort of.

As with so much stuff like this, the town's paranoid impulse to keep itself off the radar had the opposite effect, and now more people have heard of North Oaks in one day than had probably heard of it cumulatively over the past 10 years.

Google agreed to remove photos of the town from the Street View feature of its map, so no longer will idle users be able to peek in residents' windows from afar.  If you want to peek in the windows, you'll have to do it yourself.

Comments

[Mapper99]

Totally crazy idea. If they don't like the pictures, get them removed. There are a whole pile of Google Street Views that have been censored already:

http://streetviewgallery.corank.com

[Shawn]

As a North Oaks resident I see the motivation to keep our off Google street view. As an entirely private city it seems reasonable to be able to decide who travels our roads / photographs our homes. Communities making this choice will only be more common in the future.

[denis]

completely biased article, get your facts straight, the city wanted the pictures removed because those streets are privately owned and as such they were enforcing a 'no tresspasing' law (visible on several roadsigns). I see no problem with that, people are entitled to their privacy in their own 'backyard'