Those who love Google Street View egged blurred houses, and left notes on their mailboxes that read, 'Google's cool'  Privacy lovers in Germany have egg on their house faces, thanks to a crew of Google-loving vigilantes. Google launched Street View in Germany last month, but allowed those uncomfortable with the service to blur their homes. About 3% of Germans opted to do so.  Some people think that’s stupid, notably transparency advocate Jeff Jarvis. “You have digitally desecrated your cities,” wrote Jarvis on BuzzMachine. “You have diminished and devalued your public space. You have thus robbed your own public. And you have set dangerous precedents for your future.”  Jarvis was not the only one annoyed by the blurring. Last weekend, a bunch of anonymous transparency advocates threw eggs at homes that requested blurring, reports Deutsche Welle (via Gawker & Search Engine Land):  On Saturday, vandals in the Bergerhausen area of Essen, in western Germany, threw eggs at several houses which are blurred out in Street View. Not only did the amateur hit squad pelt the houses with eggs, they also taped notes stating, “Google’s cool,” to their mailboxes, according to local media reports.  A spokesperson for the Essen police department said the incident was booked as a case of property damage, although little was damaged. “We’ll see if there were witnesses,” he told Deutsche Welle. “We don’t yet have any leads pointing to a perpetrator.”  Too bad Google Street View doesn’t provide continuous surveillance services.  It’s ironic that those who wanted more privacy through blurring their homes wound up getting less of it. A Google spokesperson made it clear to Deutsche Welle that it wasn’t behind the attacks, saying that “it distances itself completely.”
Germans who requested Google blur their homes on Street View wound up with egg on their faces this weekend.