Slashdot Log In
Google's Streetview Seen As Culturally Insensitive In Japan
Posted by
timothy
on Sun Aug 10, 2008 02:42 AM
from the so-don't-look dept.
from the so-don't-look dept.
Jim O'Connell writes "Global Voices has a translation of an excellent open letter to Google by Osamu Higuchi, explaining that Street view is too invasive for Japanese traditional values when used in residential areas.
Having lived here for ten years, most recently in an older residential area, I can attest to its accuracy — Living in such close proximity to your neighbors, it becomes necessary to 'not look' at everything that you might be able see from a place such as the street, where you may have a legal right to be. The cultural boundaries are simply different than those of the US."
Related Stories
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Same here. (Score:5, Insightful)
The cultural boundaries are simply different than those of the US.
It's that way here in the U.S. too. It is impolite to take photos in people's windows. Google just doesn't care.
Re:Same here. (Score:5, Interesting)
What this really reminds us of is that meatspace is fundamentally different from cyberspace. On the net, we've evolved the ROBOTS.TXT for just this problem, and everybody agrees that websites aren't private by default, unless the owners explicitly say so. Google is a net company, and views the world as if it was an extension of the internet.
But the real world is not like the net, and in the real world the ROBOTS.TXT convention is inverted: the onus is not on the people to inform Google which data is out of bounds, instead the onus is on Google to ask every possible person which data is public. As a result, Google's company culture is fundamentally ill suited for meatspace information gathering.
The streetview example is only one of a long line of self inflicted troubles Google has brought upon itself. Here are some other examples:
When Google started scanning books and offering them online, it was behaving like a net company, assuming that if it went to a library, everything was available to them unless specifically prohibited, just like on a website. But the real world doesn't work like the web, and Google got sued by publishers. The correct approach was to ask the publishers for permission, for each and every book.
When Google started offering news stories written by others online, it was behaving like a net company, assuming that if it's on somebody's website, they can use it unless the ROBOTS.TXT says otherwise. But in the real world, those websites were only licensed to display syndicated news stories from the big organizations (Reuters, AP, AFP,...), and Google got rightly sued. The correct approach was for Google to license the material from Reuters, AP, AFP etc. themselves, before showing the material to their users.
When Google stated that Gmail wouldn't necessarily delete peoples' emails even if they shut their accounts, they got in trouble. In the real world, emails are considered private by most people, and just because they use Google's service doesn't mean they want Google to keep everything.
These examples show that Google's netroots are both an advantage (when competing in net technologies) and also a disadvantage (when trying to enter markets where the internet rules don't map well to reality). The world is more complex than what Google's management thinks.
Parent
You conveniently ommitting... (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that Google won those suits, for the most part.
Parent
Re:You conveniently ommitting... (Score:5, Informative)
There, I fixed it for ya.
Parent
Re:Same here. (Score:5, Funny)
On the net, we've evolved the ROBOTS.TXT for just this problem
I've found that the CURTAINS.TXT convention works pretty well in meatspace.
Parent
Re:Same here. (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. A total bullshit statement, pardon my french. It is not that Google does not care either. It is a pervasive campaign by government and corporations to remove all expectations of privacy from anywhere EXCEPT private property that is literally 100% covered from view. Google is not supposed to "be evil". Yeah right. I'll believe that when they stop keeping logs well past 12 months. I don't mean to bash specifically on Google or anything, but they don't seem to have a stellar track record with respect to consumer's rights and expectations of privacy.
That kind of behavior is not remotely consistent with our cultural values. Our cultural values are diverse as well, as we are a nation of immigrants. I don't know a single person that is comfortable being on a security camera while in their backyard or even in the front yard. It's just not acceptable.
Obviously where the US and Japan differ, is that the Japanese still strongly fight for their expectations of privacy or "cultural values" while in the US there is a sense of apathy and hopelessness. Those that would dare to speak up and passionately fight for anonymity, privacy, and just plain decent respect for other people's boundaries get labeled as subversive, unpatriotic, fanatical, and paranoid.
For the RECORD, I would have to say that AMERICAN VALUES (which anybody can have regardless of nationality, race, gender, etc.) is STRONGLY supportive of both privacy and anonymity. We like to to be free, and do exactly what we want when we want it, within reason of course. We don't believe that we should have to walk around in public or private identifying ourselves to anyone that asks, especially when we are just minding our own business. If someone is watching us, then we want to know who it is. There is a lot more too it, but it is not even remotely close to how I personally feel.
I guess I just resent the implication since it makes it sound like we are a totalitarian fascist country devoid of any of the freedoms we once cherished, fought, and died to protect. I guess I resent more that maybe, it is in fact, a correct assessment and that we ended up exporting all of our freedom and democracy while losing it all.
Parent
The land of the free (as in beer). (Score:5, Informative)
Being an American who originally came from Europe, I "STRONGLY" disagree.
Here in the US, people never ask permission before taking a picture that you might be on, for example. If you're in the public, you're expected to suck it up. If you don't want your picture taken, you have to stay at home.
Then there's newspapers publishing the name and pictures of crime suspects. Which quite often costs people their job and friends -- even if they are later found "not guilty". In other countries, where privacy is valued higher, this is a big NO.
Then there are the ubiquitous closed circuit cameras in pretty much every store. Even in the goddarn dressing rooms!
Oh, and try to rent a hotel room with cash, without showing a driver's license. Nope, they want your private information, so they can sell it to the highest bidder. Cause there are no privacy rights.
And let me not get started on direct advertising. Wonder why you get all the ads in your own name? Because everyone you trade with will happily sell your personal details. Not only name and address, but what you've been buying or which services you've used, so you can get targeted for maximum effect. Take your dog to the vet, and a month later, you get ads for dog food dumping into your mail box. Subscribe to a magazine, and you suddenly get eight different catalogs in the mail with the same misspelling as the magazine.
Here in the US, privacy is a commodity, not a right. I can think of few, if any countries I have lived in that had less privacy rights. Certainly not any of the European countries.
Parent
Re:I LOVE Google Streetview! (Score:5, Insightful)
Bull. Not only did that letter from the Japanese guy sound just like the letters many Americans have written re Streetview, thus negating the whole "it's another culture" argument, but it's an objectively wrong stance and catering to it is harmful.
Reality. People need to cope with it. They're visible. If they're doing something interesting their neighbors are already taking pictures, they just aren't (yet) sharing them in an easily indexable way.
If you complain about this you'll go on acting like you have privacy until it becomes painfully obvious that you don't. If you suck it up and act now, regardless of your cultural preference, as if you do not have privacy where you do not (publicly visible areas) you will not get a rude awakening.
Banning Google's Streetview would prevent people from seeing the area, but would not prevent an enemy of yours from placing a perfectly legal webcam and watching you specifically, or sharing this data - it would merely prevent all the other uses.
Don't feed the concern trolls.
Parent
I thought Taboos applied to people not things. (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know that what google is doing is taboo seeing as they are a technology in this case not a person.
If it's taboo to spy on your neighbors then don't use Google's street view. Or at the very least keep the view centered on the road.
You can't claim "the photo made you look". It's like child pornography. The fact that it exists does not force you to go download it. If you find it impolite to look at people's houses... don't look at people's houses. I'm going to let those who find the images offensive in on a little secret: nothing is stopping some insensitive smeghead from just driving down your street and staring at your house.
My view on all this? The Googmobile drove past work this last week and I hung out the window and waved.
Re:I thought Taboos applied to people not things. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know that what google is doing is taboo seeing as they are a technology in this case not a person.
And Google is not run by people?
Parent
Re:I thought Taboos applied to people not things. (Score:5, Funny)
And Google is not run by people?
Of course Google isn't run by people. The company reached singularity years ago.
Parent
Re:I thought Taboos applied to people not things. (Score:5, Insightful)
If the people at Google were reviewing the images then yes it would be 'run by people'. But I imagine the process is almost completely automated by this point. The invasion of privacy is to look at someone's house. Not the camera capturing the image.
It's a question of ethics. A camera cannot commit an immoral act. Only a photographer can. Google's web crawler cannot be charged with child pornography possession if it simply indexes a page containing child pornography. Google's street view is nothing more than an automated tool which captures data.
It only becomes a question of morality when someone chooses to view those images. Morality can only be tied into intent. If you view child pornography on accident then you have not commited an immoral act. If you intend to view child pornography and you view it then you've committed an immoral act.
Parent
Re:I thought Taboos applied to people not things. (Score:5, Interesting)
Taking a picture inside my bathroom however is physically impossible for a stranger to do. If on the other hand strangers were walking through my bathroom every day then it would be as easy for them to sneak a peek while walking through my bathroom as going online and sneeking a peek. They could be rigged with cameras which I don't know about. If a road ran through my bathroom then every single car could have a secret camera in it. People could be planting tiny cell phone video cameras in dumpsters across from my bathroom. TFA was very specific in its accusation that it was bad because people could look without being discovered. But looking without anyone 'finding you out' is possible without the assistance of google. It requires intent for the peeping tom to rotate the camera to the side and look out the side of the window. If I were there in person it requires intent for me to look to the side.
This is a human use question not a technological one. Those who have a right to look to the side of the road... should look at side of the road pictures. Those who do not have a reason to look along the side of the road--who are upstanding and considerate individuals should not look at those pictures.
Parent
Re:I thought Taboos applied to people not things. (Score:5, Insightful)
What the Japanese people are about to discover is that their expectation of privacy was ALREADY too high.
And who gave you the right to decide how each country and culture should think? You might not agree with the Japanese view - tough luck, just don't choose to live there. But you have not got the right to tell others that they are wrong simply because it is not in accord with your own personal view or it isn't the view adopted by your own country.
Are you honestly suggesting that Google should be censoring content it indexes based on "morality" and not legality?
No, but Google shouldn't be conducting itself in a manner which local custom and culture say is unacceptable. If Google doesn't like it then they can go elsewhere. I'm sure that there are huge expanses of the USA which haven't been photographed yet. Why not concentrate on their home ground and then, if other nation's decide that it is a good idea - and perhaps there is money to be made - they can invite Google to do the same in their country.
By the way, has Google tried doing this in some parts of Russia yet? There are areas occupied by the 'nouveau riche' where they will be lucky to leave alive. Ditto, there are areas in China and N Korea I believe where they will not be welcomed. You see, I don't think that they will operate in such places with the same degree of freedom as they expect in some other places, because those nations deem it unacceptable behaviour.
Parent
Re:I thought Taboos applied to people not things. (Score:5, Insightful)
If it's taboo to spy on your neighbors then don't use Google's street view. Or at the very least keep the view centered on the road.
Ah, yes, always push responsibility away, isn't it? Don't you feel this clashes with all the fine words about privacy that we always hear so much about on Slashdot? Or is privacy only important when you hide your own lurid little affair from the view of the authorities? If privacy is all-important, then it is important even to people you don't care about.
Parent
After living there... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:After living there... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
In Soviet Russia, and more (Score:5, Interesting)
Real estate (Score:5, Insightful)
Well Japan may not like Street View, and maybe some people here in the U.S. don't like it either.
But I'm currently looking for a new (well new to me) house to buy --and where I need to move to is several hundred miles from where I live now.
Google Street View has been a godsend for me --I can get a easy idea of the neighborhood and usually the property it's self --for free, from home.
So, as usual, any new use of technology has upsides as well as downsides... and who ever I buy the house from will be very happy about my use of Street view. (eventually I will have to go and take a physical look, but my list of places to look at will be vastly shorter because of S.V.)
Hypocrisy is only wrong when someone else does it (Score:5, Interesting)
Since when are the Japanese sensitive about photographing private residential areas!?
I live in the Weststadt residential neighborhood of Heidelberg, Germany. Heidelberg is a beautiful city, and sees many tourists. For some reason, the Japanese tour groups frequently travel down my street. Also, for some reason, many of the older Japanese tourists frequently take pictures of me doing such mundane things as bringing home groceries. I find it amusing that I am probably in several dozen Japanese photo albums, probably entitled "typical German going to the grocery store." I find it especially amusing, because I am an expatriate American, not a German.
In any case, is it typical for the Japanese to consider their own residential neighborhood private, but everyone else's to be public?
Re:Hypocrisy is only wrong when someone else does (Score:5, Insightful)
I have blonde hair and blue eyes. Every time I have visited China I have been practically assaulted by Japanese tourists. They not only photo me. They try and touch my hair and start posing in front of me etc etc etc. Needless to say this was unappreciated.
My aunt lives in Hawaii and japanese tourists are amazed by the size of her feet. She's been lieing on the beach and had Japanese tourists come up and lay down right next to her and have their pictures taken by their family with their feet right next to hers for comparison.
It's been my conclusion that any view of privacy on the part of the Japanese is strictly limited to the island of Japan. Which I've never had a problem with from a priacy standpoint--just a personal intrusion. I don't care if I'm in a photo. I do care that I'm being prevented from going about my business by someone standing in my way trying to pose in front of me. Or touching me. They can touch my blonde hair photos on the internet all they want as long as I don't have to be there while you do it.
Parent
Re:Hypocrisy is only wrong when someone else does (Score:5, Interesting)
Try being 6'4" with blond hair and green eyes walking the crowded streets of Tokyo. People would come up to me and feel the hair on my arms. They seem to be utterly fascinated with anyone that has any kind of body hair. I guess hairy freaks aren't allowed any kind of personal space.
Large groups of people, mostly kids and teenagers, would crowd around me and want to have their picture taken. It was just as bad in the Philippines, if not worse.
I'm glad I don't travel anymore.
Parent
Re:Hypocrisy is only wrong when someone else does (Score:5, Insightful)
The japaneese take pictures of sidewalks.... they have this love for the cammera that i will never understand.
However, dont get them wrong: its completely harmless and they dont go publizicing them all over.
On the other hand, google is selling your life for profit: there is a difference there.
Parent
Ah yes... the nice japs at it (Score:5, Interesting)
Yup...
Few things will irk the average japaneese more than invasion of privacy.
This is a country and culture so different from occidental ones that they tend to have no locks in their rooms because nobody would imagine entering without knocking, where people police each other in the subway so that you dont scream or make any kind of fuss that might irk the guy next to you.
I admire that part of their culture very much because its clearly a civilizatory trend: it makes people very councious about the rights of the next guy: its an insular culture ripe for pure individual freedom at its best.
Interestingly enough, their rigid social side follows very clear rules and is never very personal: the japaneese keep their inner self... erm.. to themselves.
I like that a lot.
Re:Japan respects privacy??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, you mean like the way the visitors to the USA are treated?
Parent