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June 22, 2009, 04:39 PM ET
Google's 'Street View' Eyeballs College Campuses
The campus: a haven of green quadrangles and footpaths winding around academic buildings, largely inaccessible to car traffic—and to Google Maps’ “Street View” feature. It has been busy providing closeup photos—taken from cars—of buildings around the world.
Now through the genius of high technology—mounting a camera on a bicycle or pedicab—campuses are within Google’s reach. Today eSchool News reports that that pedal-powered vehicles have been trawling the grounds at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of San Diego, and the California State University at San Diego.
The streetscape service has raised hackles and concerns about privacy in other countries. Germany asked the company to erase faces, house and license place numbers from photographs, and Greece rejected Google’s request to photographs city streets until it received more reassurances about privacy.
The move to map college campuses may be a way to defuse these worries. Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of the Web site Search Engine Land, told eSchool News that the effort sounded like good public relations. “This is a nice way for them to say, ‘Hey, look, Street View: It’s really warm and fuzzy,’” he told the newspaper. “It’s not just about taking pictures of people’s houses. We can find these footpaths that people want to go on and walking areas, places people will like.” —Josh Fischman
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