Entire Minnesota Town Removed From Google Street View

from the don't-trespass-me,-bro dept

Apparently a small "privately-owned" Minnesota town, called North Oaks, that includes "no trespassing" signs on all streets entering the community, wasn't particularly happy when it found out that Google's Street View vehicles made a trip through the town. After discovering (gasp!) images of houses in the town on Google Maps, the town demanded that Google take down the images -- which Google did. There's no real controversy here, since the town (correctly) asked Google to remove the images rather than rush to sue, but the whole thing still seems bizarre. What really is the big deal about Google Street View having photos online? It's difficult to see how this is any sort of privacy violation, but it does seem these days people go out of their way to think that they can control things that really shouldn't be controlled. Legally, the town may be on solid ground, since the community is on private land -- but it's difficult to see why they would object so strenuously to this offering.

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