However, while I’m not a fan of the ’slippery slope’ argument, two things are indisputably true – technology advances and makes things that are expensive today cheap tomorrow and google will use these technologies to provide access to data it (rightly or wrongly) believes it should make available to everyone*. So in six or twelve months time, when they do a new streetview with Infra Red cameras to create a heatmap by areas, will you have the right to complain that people can now see through your wall that you have an electric blanket? And if so, what if I just drove past your house with my own IR camera – that would be okay no? And if not, how does that differ from standard optical imagery? And what about in a decade or so when unmanned drones provide this information in real-time enabling proper surveillance?

If this sounds far fetched, be aware how cheap thermal imaging has become and that even Night Vision goggles are now cheap enough to form part of a £120 premium console video game pack where games retail alone for £55 in that context (curse our floppy pound!).

*Where it gets interesting is that Google do, of course, make exceptions. If you are a nation state like the USA, Israel or, when our clowns get around to it, the UK (remember the recent GCHQ & SAS imagery kerfuffle) and ask them, they’ll kindly obscure facilities like Dimona. Equally if you are a repressive regime with 1.2bn people, they’ll block access to whatever the hell you like and call you sir (China) and to hell with their slogan ‘don’t be evil’. Its only if you are a powerless, wealthless peon that they’ll publish your data.

MancU, Google Earth allows people to see details about your private property, which may not bother you but is still a breach of privacy. Google Street View is different, but it still displays your private property online – which is by definition publishing personal information. I know it doesn’t sound sinister, but it’s still taking personal information (what car you drive, how big is your home) and putting on the internet for other people to access without your permission.

It’s great to come here and see such a post and you can be sure I’ll be quoting from this.

Facebook et al aren’t there yet but as life moves to immitate art, even with current technology, its worth a read!

I bring this up as, elliptically, perhaps Dave doesn’t think privacy as a concept has any legs left due to the flow of technological progress. His close relationship with Google heads may mean that he has been captured by their ‘all your data belongs to us’ worldview.

That the new head of MI6 fell foul of it made me laugh as an Aunt of mine did some secret work for a very quiet bit of the US Government with another 3-letter acronym and she wouldn’t go anywhere near it. Whether this was from professionalism or pique at a rival agency pulling off such a coup is a question I don’t really expect to ever get answered.

As for whether our Government is watching carefully, I’d suggest that perhaps it is. If it is also in receipt of Facebook derived intelligence from the CIA under standard intel-sharing procedures then it would, of course, be arguable that the rest of their ham-fisted assaults on our privacy is a mere smokescreen to distract us from the wealth of data we are voluntarily giving the Intelligence community. It also means that extremist fascist groups and religious nuts who coalesce around and on Facebook are even more deeply retarded than you’d first think.