The article recounts the author's emotional response to a Google Maps Street View image shared by an old friend. This image shows the author's childhood home and, unexpectedly, their deceased father's figure standing nearby, which stirs a mix of emotions from love to anger. Reflecting on the implications of privacy in the age of 'surveillance capitalism,' the author grapples with the appropriateness of such intimate images being publicly accessible. This experience comes to the forefront as they remember their father's birthday, highlighting the intersection of memory, loss, and modern technology.
This was followed by annoyance: who gave Google permission to help itself to close-range images of most of our world, without checking if it was OK with us?
It's far more intimate an image than it feels appropriate for Google to share but...too personal yet, at the same time, too impersonal.
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