I had a rant the other day on Giz about Google’s new StreetView service. Basically it was in response to an SMH article that claimed that a guy named “Bill” (not his real name) was photographed passed out on his mother’s lawn after a big night on the drink mourning his recently deceased best mate. The SMH claimed it was an invasion of privacy. I disagree.

But, perhaps worse, there are now millions of people who have seen the photo as a direct result of the SMH article, as opposed to the dozens who might have seen it on StreetView.

Anyway, for my entire argument look at the Giz article. What I wanted to mention here is the two different responses I’ve gotten. In response to the Giz post, the vast majority of readers agree with me – that StreetView is a service and that Google’s privacy measures are adequate. Yet when discussing the issue on the ITJourno forum (a discussion point for IT journalists in Australia), individuals there are quite vocal in there opposition to StreetView.

Why is that? Is it because they feel that they need to fight for the right of the lesser people? Or is it because through the controversy they can create engaging editorial?

But even more importantly – Why am I so opinionated on this matter? I generally don’t care one way or the other about what other people write. But for some reason, this whole controversy reeked of sensationalism to me.

Oh well. At least I have the Olympics to distract me when I get too worked up…