On Sun, May 3, 2009 at 1:04 PM, R E Sieber <[email protected]> wrote: > Its basic stance is that its actions are acceptable because they are legal, > one that has > angered burakumin leaders. > > So should we build map products that always force collection of metadata and > contextual information?
This is a freaky and complicated issue. The concerns of the Burakumin are real and tragic. I don't see any grand conspiracy - I assume Google said 'hey, historical maps, cool' and put them up. As a practical matter I don't believe in Civil Liberty through Obscurity. The people who discriminate mostly already know 'who is who,' and will do so regardless. But it is a real issue and it makes me cry to think of people harmed because of where they live or the profession of their Great Grandparents. And I support Google publishing the data. I have a deep belief that publishing data is a moral imperative. To roughly quote Ben Hammersley on opening the BBC's vaults: 'because we can we must.' But one quote from the article rubbed me the wrong way. the quote that its 'actions are acceptable because they are legal' is an abominable moral stance. Publishing data is a revolutionary act. And so is not publishing data. The company which is so concerned about random people's public privacy that it will obscure a horse's face from Street View images, and intentionally de-rezzes images of 'sensitive' areas in support of various governments' attempts at Security Theater, does not get to say 'its okay because its legal.' Legality can not, must not, be the only standard for what is acceptable. (Note: I do accept that in theory there is data which should not be published, just not very much.) _______________________________________________ Geowanking mailing list [email protected] http://geowanking.org/mailman/listinfo/geowanking_geowanking.org
