You're walking along the street and you suddenly notice the big red ball in the sky with nearly a dozen cameras and monitoring devices. Is it possible you've been Googled? Though you assume you've been photographed and placed on the maps for posterity, Google cars out on the road have also been capturing snippets wi-fi (phone and internet conversations) as they pass by. Those conversations have not been made available to public--yet. Maybe they'll launch an adjunct service to their street view function, where you can listen to what people are saying and texting, for instance.

To get to Google Street View just go to Google Maps (maps.google.com) and click on Street View. Enter a city or street address to see something. While some faces have been blurred, you can easily recognize friends and family who may have been out when the Google car & camera passed by. License plates seem to be blurred mostly, however.

If you find yourself, your car & home and don't like what you see, there is a form to fill out to try to get some items removed or blurred. We've not tried this yet. Here is the form content:

Street View: Name of Street
Why are you reporting this street view?

* Privacy Concerns
* This is in reference to an image of: A face
I am reporting an image of a face that has not been blurred
* My house
I have found a picture of my house and would like it blurred
* My car / a license plate
I am reporting a legible license plate that has not been blurred
I have found a picture of my car and would like it blurred
* Inappropriate Content
I have found offensive content, such as nudity, in this image
This image presents privacy concerns to me
Other
* Other
I am reporting an error in Street View such as a misplaced image, wrong address or misaligned navigation arrows
I am reporting bad image quality
This image presents security concerns
Other

Please describe the problem to help us to resolve your report:
Email address:

A U.S. court ordered Google to hand over two copies of wireless data that the company's Street View program collected as it photographed neighborhoods, as reported by Diane Bartz in Reuters, May 2010. Google has not stated what they plan to do with such data.

Is Google Street View too invasive?

The elaborate cameras and equipment that look like the giant red eye of a bug take pictures of everything as a car passes by public places and residential neighborhood. A couple called the Borings, Aaron and Christine Boring, sued Google for invasion of privacy when Street View added their Pittsburgh house to its inventory you can see online. The Boring family was paid one dollar by Google for the incident. If you want to see where criminals, kids and any other folks at all live, just go to Google maps. Sometimes you'll even see the family playing in the yard or coming out of the house.

Some countries have said no to Google's invasive reach--Germany, Czech Republic, and other countries have pulled the stops (on a limited basis). Google, likewise, has been embroiled in controversies over security issues with various countries such as the U.S. and China.

Anger and hatred for this invasive technology has brought vandalism to the vehicles driven for the Street View effort, but most find the vehicles a novelty and snap photos when the cars pass by.

This is California living at its best!

Google FACTS

Google was founded by two students from Stanford University and as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Ph.D. in 1996.

The name Google comes from the misspelling of googol, the number represented by a 1 followed by one-hundred zeros.

Google.com was registered on September 15, 1997.

Google Inc., was incorporated in Menlo Park on September 4, 1998.

Google, Inc. public offering launch took place on August 25, 2004. A total of 19,605,052 shares were offered at a price of $85 per share. An estimated $1.67 billion was initially raised.

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