Hands up if you're worried about the privacy issues surrounding the launch of Google Street View UK?
Sure, it's cool and Hitwise is reporting a 41% spike in traffic to Google maps yesterday.
Having a play with it yesterday was fun and naturally you hone in on your local area or well-known places/attractions - (hence the Streetview/VisitBritian tie-up). And, you can't help wondering when the was car out and about and filming your area.
Then it gets a bit spooky as you look at your kids' school with faces milling about - fuzzy for obvious reasons.
Is it all getting a bit too detailed and close to home?
And, it's not just StreetView but also the talk of behavioural targeting. Google recently announced its foray into behavioural advertising amid lots of muttering about privacy issues.
Feedback from experts says the search giant should set the standard with a balance between targeting and privacy.
The search giant isn't the only one in the space - at a TTI session before Christmas, Yahoo said the average user leaves more than 2,500 clues a month digitally from e-mail address, friends networks, ads they have clicked on.
That got the floor almost apoplectic with cries of foul play and privacy concerns.
Perhaps more pertinent are the commercial issues, especially in midst of a downturn - how targeted can it be and will the user object to advertising based on their online behaviour?
Are we ready for Big Brother 2.0?
And who owns the data? Who owns my 2,601 online hints? It's my cookie, that's who:) So, with Expedia now getting into the behavioral biz, too, and other OTAs sure to follow, I think we are entering Big Brother 3.0 or perhaps we are up to 5.0. Maybe Expedia, Yahoo and Google should give me a revenue share on the sale of my cookie, which is going to be used to target me with an ad? It all sort of comes full circle, don't it?