Comments on: Wha? Flickr’s got maps now?

By: wari

wari — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 08:52:54 +0000

You ah, if you clicked on the map and went to the flickr page. You can zoom out and see that the photos are from Australia.

By: spacebar

spacebar — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 01:47:20 +0000

Hmmm. Is this Singapore? I knew about this but didn’t bother since Google Maps coverage of Singapore is yucky – read the Punggol area is a low-res blob of imagery captured more than 5 years ago! Really….

By: wari

wari — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 02:42:14 +0000

I'd geotag an image of an interesting place. Not where my house is located. Anyway, Flickr's got some interesting options when geotagging. For example, you can have a public photo, but the location is private to either friends or family.

I'm just wondering if the location data is in the EXIF tags, would Flickr strip it out?

By: karl

karl — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 00:52:28 +0000

For what is worth, there are plenty of programs to associate your GPS data with your photos.

BUT the real question is do you really want to display that in public as you just did in that photo. There are very important privacy issues by geolocalizing photos. For people you are taking into photos, for people you are visiting the house, for yourself.

Use case scenario: You post photos of your house with GPS information, then everyone knows on Google where you live with a precision of a few meters. Later on, on your weblog, you announced you go to vacation. The house is empty. Message: "Hey you out of there, come to rob my house".

At least it would not be an issue, if it's really your choice. But if you do that with a friend's house who has in the room interesting pieces of things to steal. Or if you take this cute girl (let's say teenager) on the beach and she's being tracked by a pervert.

Mash-ups are not only working for the good usage, it is working also for bad usage.