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View Leaves You Google-Eyed

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By RICHARD MULLINS

The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 29, 2008

Updated: 03/29/2008 12:33 am

Ever want to sneak a peek of your boss' house? Or a popular beach, or a view of a park where you plan to barbecue? Now you can dial up ground-level images of those spots on your computer and take a good look.

Google on Friday added the Tampa Bay area to the growing list of cities where it offers "Street View," a penetrating photographic tour along nearly every street in the region, with vantage points as if you were walking down that particular street.

The wrap-around shots are not from satellites or airplanes. They're street-level snapshots from that location, collected by camera-equipped vehicles contracted by Google to collect the imagery as they drive.

Hundreds of square miles of Tampa Bay area roads are in the system, from the beaches of St. Petersburg to South Tampa to Seffner, and more likely will come as Google enhances the feature.

Here's how it works:

When users type an address or company name into Google Maps (maps.google.com) or Google Local (local.google

.com) a map of that spot appears. A small button called "Street View" appears next to other features such as traffic, satellite images and terrain. Any street marked with a special blue color has ground-level images. As users click on the Street View button, a window appears with images from the street in that spot. Moving the cursor arrow left, right or up and down moves the image in any direction, including straight up.

The system works with a combination of GPS coordinates and public address data, so users entering addresses may find them accurate to about 100 yards.

Cameras Catch Candid Scenes

Google's Street View launched in May 2007, with views of San Francisco, New York, Miami, Denver and Las Vegas. Additional cities are added every few months. Google collects the images with a special team of vehicles equipped with panoramic, digital cameras mounted on the roof that run automatically during a drive down the street.

At times, that catch-all tactic collects candid, potentially embarrassing moments.

A search for The Tampa Tribune's address (200 S. Parker St., Tampa) reveals Tribune photographer Jay Nolan crossing the street. Other shots show University of Tampa students entering dorms.

For the curious, a wide range of blogs has emerged to collect oddball images taken by the system, including gstreetsightings.com, googlesightseeing.com and others that post photos of people apparently entering adult bookstores, sunbathing and climbing security fences.

Many local places, however, are beyond Google's reach. The images stop at the gates of MacDill Air Force Base, gated communities and private neighborhoods, including parts of Westchase and the West Shore area. Most of Harbour Island is not photographed. Other areas appear to fall below Google's measure of wide interest, including Riverview, Gulfport and Pass-a-Grille Beach.

Photos Can Be Removed

Google does offer a way for people to protest images they consider inappropriate or an invasion of privacy, by accessing a "Help" button on the Street View system.

Google says it normally removes objectionable or otherwise inappropriate spots to photograph, including areas with nudity, domestic violence shelters and clearly identifiable individuals.

To date, Google spokeswoman Elaine Filadelfo said the company has received very few imagery removal requests.

Irate photo subjects could choose to sue Google, but the suits likely won't get far, said Brent Britton, an intellectual property lawyer with the Tampa office of Squire, Sanders & Dempsey.

Google's system has been operational in several major cities for many months, Britton said, and there have been few actions against Google, and none successful in court.

"These are photos taken of public places, from public places, and any other person walking down the same street as the Google van would see the exact same thing," Britton said.

"Whenever pictures show up of sunbathers, or that Marilyn Monroe dress flying up moment, folks can get upset. But everyone on the street saw that same thing. The only difference is that Google just made it available to billions of people."

HOW TO FIND A STREET VIEW

•Go online to maps.google.com.

•Type in an address.

•Click the "Street View" button on the map.

•If the address has street-level images, it will be highlighted in blue.

•Click on the thumbnail photo; a larger window will appear.

•Inside the photo, move your mouse left and right to pan the image back and forth.

See something interesting?

Contact reporter Richard Mullins at (813) 259-7919 or rmullins@tampatrib.com.

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