Broughton is a pleasant English village, technically part of the town of Milton Keynes. But it became the scene of confrontation last week when residents physically blocked a Google Street View car from taking pictures. Their reasons, they said, were that it invaded privacy and was “facilitating crime.”
When resident Paul Jacobs saw the car, he called neighbors and they formed a cordon to prevent the vehicle going further. He told the BBC:
"I don’t have a problem with Google wanting to promote villages. What I have a problem with is the invasion of privacy, taking pictures directly into the home."
"Google have taken a tremendous liberty in the way they’ve gone about it.”
"If they were simply going to view the street as a street scene rather than drive almost into people’s drives and take pictures of the houses – I think that’s a different issue."
The villagers called police, but by the time they arrived the Google car had already left.
Speaking for Google, Peter Barron responded:
"Many, many millions of people have used the service very happily, and it’s proved very useful.”
"But we do recognize that a small minority of people won’t feel comfortable about it."
