I know I’m a little over-obsessed with Google, but this is really because they are light years ahead when it comes to personalisation, search and location-based services – or combinations of these, like Google Maps and Google Earth. There’s an article in The Age today about a recent US court case concerning Google Maps. A federal judge has ruled against a US couple who accused Google of invading their privacy by publishing a Street View picture of their house in the Internet giant’s free online map service. The pictures are certainly very detailed, and taken from a private road by the house.

The reason Google won? They argued that an expectation of privacy concerning pictures of houses or yards is unrealistic in this age of aerial and satellite imagery. Is privacy becoming unrealistic?