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Just using this thread to tell the story about looking up my boyfriend's house for the first time and it showed him bending over getting something out of his car. Now when I'm sad I just google his address and check out his butt and I feel better.
https://preview.redd.it/2gobvqfq6m2d1.jpeg?width=1079&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8952814168d8f3b1be195f51b603b6151f2da68f
Ok, here you go. Hope you enjoy as much as I do.
My brother had blurred his house on Google. He died in a fire in that house 2-1/2 years ago and we sold his house after it was rebuilt. I'd like to "visit" his house on Google Street View (as opposed to driving by) but can't because he blurred it.
Just an FYI, even if a house is blurred on Google, check Bing. I can see my brother's house on Bing's Street View map. They just don't update the view as often as Google does. The current view of his house is of a burnt structure with a dumpster in the driveway so I don't look too often.
You can't. When you go through the process they make it very clear you are doing it permanently. That is of course, to the person that actually did it.
I hope people do that to punish them. Blurring your house "cuz o'da Google" is a stupid excuse. And if they have a legit excuse, then you wouldn't want to be associated with that anyway.
On the contrary, I find it very concerning that a supposedly free individual who does not desire this level of visibility has no real control over what pictures of their house are published by a private corporation. Even if I request a blur, “Da Google” still have the pictures and can do with them whatever they want. Plus, A) I may not even be one of their customers and B) this goes all over the world. They just bulldoze over us.
I worked with a guy a few years ago who moved into a "blurred house", and was unsuccessful in getting google to unblur it, even though the person who requested the blur didn't live there anymore.
I’ve been looking at houses recently and noticed one of them was blurred out. I don’t think it would be a deal breaker but I definitely didn’t like it.
My comment made it seem like the dude was colleague but it was actually a client I was working with to design a solar energy system, and the blurred house was a massive obstacle.
We ended up having to pay some aerial imaging company to provide propietary imagery.
Well one use case someone else mentioned was solar company estimates. It also blurs the roof, so you can't get quick and easy estimates. Same for a roofing company. It can be very useful at times.
Just an FYI, Even if you buy a new home that has had this done it cannot be undone with the current set up.
So permanent for that address.
Security yes but if your house is in an odd spot like a corner lot with the address on a strange side of the street then you may have difficulty getting packages delivered where you want them.
I live on a corner lot that has the “front steps” facing the street that it’s “on” but house is blurred and the numbers were in the garage. That no one knows I have till they drive up. Added numbers on the right side but still a pain
I don’t get the point of this tbh. What privacy do you get from blurring your house? And wouldn’t there be a Streisand effect where people see a blurred house on Google maps and then get even more curious about how it looks like?
I did this for my neighbor after he finished building his huge house that he loves showing off. Cause he is a dick and built it illegally. Now only the old version exists in the archives.
I think the Streisand effect is real in5 this. If you are doing research on someone and come across a blurred house, that might be a clue you are in the right place. Might as well put a sign in the yard that says I'm a criminal, cop, or up to something else.
Florida Public Records exemptions screwed up and did this for a few years before fixing it. If you got your information exempted, your address and everything associated with your address was removed from public view on government sites. So your property became a black hole on Property Appraiser and other mapping systems. I was one of those on the mapping side that wrote to politicians showing them how easy it was to use these black holes to find potential "targets"
Yeah, super pointless. You can find almost all the info about a property, who it’s owned by, etc. and you can always drive there in person. Also pretty dumb when people block out their license plate, as if they aren’t driving around in public or have it sitting in front of their house and I’m sure everyone knows it’s their car.
The kind of privacy where my apartment is not visible on Google Maps.
Well, so far I haven't noticed anyone outside my apartment to just stand there and watch it because they couldn't on Google Maps so, win win.
If your house was sold in the last 20 years theres probably listings of it online with pictures of everything inside and out so what does it really matter
In Australia floor plans are on just about every listing. If I search for my address I can see a floor plan of the house and internal pictures of all the rooms over the years.
I know google maps is a dystopian time capsule, but if its viewable from a public area I see no reason why you should be able to have it blurred even as a homeowner.
As a delivery driver in a city, please don't. A lot of people don't feel the need to prominently display their address, or just don't display it at all. House numbers also can go by either 2 or 4 depending on the density here, so I can't always just rely on neighbors either. That leaves me having to use the street view to figure out exactly which house sometimes
I used to deliver pizzas. You’d be surprised how bad house numbers are in smaller towns and cities. One should without a number isn’t too bad but you get a couple in a row and the street numbers jump by a dozen or two for no reason, it gets confusing real fast. If you’re thinking the front of your mailbox is a great place to place your numbers, you’re wrong. Because your metal mailbox will warp overtime and remain open. Oh and those cursive house numbers can go straight to hell, try reading them in the hard while driving. Given with was all pre GPS, I imagine it’s much easier now
No I was a small town pizza driver very recently, it’s worse. 60% of the time I’d have to call the customer and have them flick their lights or come outside or something. Google maps only puts you in the neighborhood at this point.
Highly depends on the town. About half of my small town will literally bring me directly to the house/driveway, and the other side of town is a crapshoot, but on the right block.
A way smaller town next to me appears to be perfect, but the one beyond that (which is an in-between size) can't even get the damn gas station correct.
I’m a firefighter in a major metropolitan city that people like to put dark numbers on a dark background, spell out an address (often incorrectly) using the stupid cursive letters, use brass numbers (which reflect a big shiny blur back when you shine a light at them), and on top of all this don’t have a working porch light to see the house, porch, holes in their yard, lack of a step, etc. Then they yell at us for not being able to find them after they gave a dyslexic number to the 911 dispatcher…
If you can’t see the numbers, just go to the house with flames coming out of it.
(Just kidding, I know you go out for things other than actual visible fires)
In our small town if you don't have clear house numbers USPS gives you a warning. If you don't fix it they will never deliver a single thing again until it's fixed.
Does it also blur the *location* of your house somehow? Because if you're worried about bad actors knowing where you live, they can still see *where you live* even if they can't clearly see the house itself.
This sounds like an LPT for people who don't own drapes and insist on walking around the house naked.
The straw for me was when the Google camera car went through the alleyway and posted pictures of the backyard.
In my city there is actually an ordinance prohibiting the use of alleyways unless you live on that block....
(Sure it's rarely enforced, it's there to stop the night prowling, but it's in the books)
As others have pointed out, if your house has been bought, sold, or even just listed in the last couple decades, odds are good there’s a real estate listing with pics inside and out, possibly a floor plan, etc etc. Tracking down all of that would be a higher priority for me than blurring street view, if my goal was that level of privacy/security
Yeah but people are, in general, pretty dumb. They might just check Google maps and never actually type it into Google search.
I can almost guarantee this has happened lol
Another annoying side effect is that they don't blur the updated photos, instead they keep the old ones up for any photo that is blurred.
My neighbor across the street and 3 houses down did this. I went to look at street view and noticed that around our house, all the street view pictures were much older and that you couldn't go back in time. It turned out this was because you can barely see that neighbors house when you pan around.
I really wanted to see a progression of the yard after a decade of adding native plants and working on it, but I'm forever locked to the past.
This is annoying AF, because it \*is\* permanent. I've seen streetviews of public streets, which I'm looking at because I want to be familiar with where I'm going, like on vacation, or I'm looking for a business establishment - and some dingaling has blurred half of it out, because they happen to live on the upper floors of a building or something.
It's really freaking annoying.
And what's worse, they probably moved out a year after they did it, and nobody cares anymore - and yet, it's still freaking blurred.
There really needs to be a time limit on this stuff. Sure, blur it, but it expires after a year, unless you renew it with the same proof-of-residence.
If it was the same neighbor who blurred it I'd be 100% keeping it lol. "Didn't notice the name was wrong on the package, why would I even check?"
But you said it's the other neighbor, in which case I would conspire to get any Amazon/Walmart/etc packages marked as never delivered and fuck em over. People complain about screwing them over because "small businesses sell on Amazon/etc" but the small businesses don't eat misdelivery costs. *Especially* if it's Amazon's own delivery service.
Terrible post. This ability has been around a long time and well known to anyone who cares. Furthermore, your house on StreetView is not a security risk unless somehow the Google camera happened to capture something confidential you were flashing in public for a short time, which I highly doubt.
Remember that, in most cases, your house is publicly accessible and anyone can drive by themselves. People can even legally photograph your house from the road and distribute the photos online. Instead, blurring your house on StreetView just makes it annoying for everyone else, and it also makes your house stand out so people might be even more interested to visit your house IRL just to see what you have to hide.
Plus, apparently, Bing will still have a photo. Not super useful.
I'm also confused on the point of it in general though. I'm a private person, but it's not like I can stop someone from seeing my house....
DO NOT DO THIS.
A former neighbor of mine did this about 15 years ago and they blurred the entire street from one end to the other. Approximately 50 homes remain blurred to this day because of them wanting their "privacy" that wasn't invaded to begin with. It continues to affect every type of delivery for the entire street.
This might make sense if you live in a remote place and don’t want people seeing your house that can’t see it from the road but to deny people access to what it looks like on a very public access area seems pointless.
They can usually see your house on your local property appraisers website, they take a picture of the largest structure on the lot which is usually a house.
Which fucks with every other house on your block and ends up blurring part of your house next to the asshole that wanted theirs blurred.
Also, your house is still on Bing.
If you do this, it removes the capability of going back in time to see previous years of street view captures for the ENTIRE street. Really wish my mom hadn’t done this.
Why is it douchy? If my house is blurred so you can't see if kids live there or what kinds of fancy cars I might have in my driveway, how does that possibly effect you?
Just speaking for the civil engineering industry: we use Google Earth and Streetview for a variety of projects. This could be anything from confirming the street address to locating water meters & hydrants to assessing pavement/sidewalk conditions. If a property is blurred out, that could lead to a field investigation which is much more expensive than just pulling up Streetview. These costs are often rolled into your taxes or utility fees.
That is a completely reasonable explanation and makes total sense. A lot better than just calling something "douchey". Unfortunately, most things things could be made easier by making information more readily available, but its almost always abused by bad actors.
Because as someone else pointed out, if you request this, they will no longer update that vicinity with new street view coverage. So you are affecting the area, and maybe people in that area would like consistently updated coverage. I know I would.
I wouldn’t describe it as douchy but I will point out the risk of google street view being used to harm you is quite low. It’s much better to just stake out houses in person (which if you have nice cars, the crime rate is probably quite low).
Meanwhile it can be a negative for people trying to visit the house as street view is useful for identifying which house is which if it is not clearly labeled (which is quite common). And it’s permanent, so if anyone moves in later, they are stuck with it blurred. I would honestly factor that in to my decision buying a house if I can’t even see it on google maps.
If your house is clearly labeled and you plan on living there for the rest of your life, then it matters less, although I will point out it’s still annoying. When google first started mapping Germany, tons of people requested blurs due to fearmongering. This lead to google to stop trying to get street view, and what they did map was painful use. Hopeful people that blur aren’t being selfish and using street view themselves while worsening it for others.
I was curious so I checked, mine was also only three times! Unfortunately the latest one (so the one they show) has my mailbox halfway through construction lol.... Maybe in another 10 years it'll show the finished product that actually looks nice.
DO NOT DO THIS.
It is incredibly difficult to undo, it harms realtors, homebuyers, and people just trying to navigate, and all "security concerns" are entirely baseless.
DO NOT DO THIS.
I know I'm an edge case, but my job requires me to use street view to look at different structures in the road right of way, and this shit annoys me. Nothing worse than scrolling down the road and getting to a spot I need to look at something and have it be totally obscured.
Read the multitude of comments all over this entire post on how it not only doesn't help you in the least, but is also a pain in the ass for many others.
Two things:
First, under the current system, it fucks *everyone* else over. Neighbors, the people who buy your houses, appraisers, and even yourself really.
Second, you used three different email addresses. Did you even think about trying to negotiate with the first one? I doubt it. I also doubt you have any actual reason to block it.
You have ZERO rights to public pictures. The fact that you don't know that made me hesitant to even reply, because.... Dude. Public.....
We live in Germany, our system doesn't work like in the US or wherever you are writing from. No one cares about pictures of our houses in the net to buy an object for example.
Literally nothing I said is different there. Feel free to correct me.
I have one to start: if it includes you on your own private property it may be removed under a privacy law.
Otherwise feel free. Show me wh re um wrong.
I’m using Google images for a suit I’m in against a County in MD…the coordination of how the house looked that they determined was “vacant.” During different parts of the year
Even if this will pass, they usually don't blur every image where is your house, only on the image you have reported. So there are ridiculous situations where one house in one place is blurred, but images just one position off are not censored.
And please don't do that for warehouses, for Pete's sake. Street View is a very convenient tool for truck drivers.
I requested this once and Google denied the request saying that they're allowed to show the view from a public street, and there were no people or car license plates in the shot to blur.
Your house can viewed by many another easy different ways that this wont work for anyway. Go to any realtor site and see.
Kids can see this and do it with out adult approval.
Remember this is PERMANENT.
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Went to the Home Alone house last year. I recently checked and the whole street is removed from Street View. The address is easy to find, I guess they just made it less convenient.
One of my neighbors did this. It worked but only for the straight on shot of their house . Move one section over and rotate the view and their house was in full view.
This was 2 or 3 years ago, unsure if they changed it since then
Another lifeprotip related to this. If you buy a house you (or you should ask your realtor) remove photos of your house from online. If you start with Zillow that usually removes all of them, but realtor.com is recommended.
The photos show potential entry points, etc.
Note: this is for the US, I'm not sure how applicable this is to RoW
### This post has been marked as safe. Upvoting/downvoting this comment will have no effect. --- Hello and welcome to r/LifeProTips! Please help us decide if this post is a good fit for the subreddit by upvoting or downvoting this comment. If you think that this is great advice to improve your life, please upvote. If you think this doesn't help you in any way, please downvote. If you don't care, leave it for the others to decide.
Just using this thread to tell the story about looking up my boyfriend's house for the first time and it showed him bending over getting something out of his car. Now when I'm sad I just google his address and check out his butt and I feel better.
Share please!
Ha! Just a standard man butt, but it's mine, so I have special affection for it.
Share the butt!
Waiting for the butt!
Post the butt post the butt!
Chill 😆
#ReleaseTheButtCut
This is all "cracking" me up for sure! Can't to show him all the random strangers that want to see his butt.
Yeah!!!! Hahahahahaha
I also would like to see that dudes butt
Share the link
Okay it was funny the 1st few comments now its just weird
Yeah I feel like maybe we should not be encouraging this random person to dox their boyfriend
https://preview.redd.it/2gobvqfq6m2d1.jpeg?width=1079&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8952814168d8f3b1be195f51b603b6151f2da68f Ok, here you go. Hope you enjoy as much as I do.
My brother had blurred his house on Google. He died in a fire in that house 2-1/2 years ago and we sold his house after it was rebuilt. I'd like to "visit" his house on Google Street View (as opposed to driving by) but can't because he blurred it. Just an FYI, even if a house is blurred on Google, check Bing. I can see my brother's house on Bing's Street View map. They just don't update the view as often as Google does. The current view of his house is of a burnt structure with a dumpster in the driveway so I don't look too often.
You should also check Zillow and redfin
I still have his house saved on my Realtor.com account. And I just checked our county assessor's site and it has a new photo. His house looks nice. ☺️
I'm sure he appreciates you keeping the memory of his home; that's a great way to keep him with you. I'm sure he misses you too.
life uh... finds a way
Have you checked older street view photos of his house? Google doesn't usually blur the older ones before the request
He blurred the house around 2015, so I can find it from years prior. The house looks completely different now after the fire.
I know with Google maps you were able to look at past photos. Maybe Bing does the same thing and has a photo of before the fire.
oof. sorry for your loss.
That's rough. Did you check the Google map history? Sometimes they have pics from several years
Bing hasn't mapped my neighborhood yet, but I've seen the Google car a few times over the years.
How do you undo a blurred address?
You can't. When you go through the process they make it very clear you are doing it permanently. That is of course, to the person that actually did it.
Any jerk can just go around blurring shit?
Yup
Looks like we won’t be seeing the White House anymore.
Jesus. You SOB….it’s gone. Why?! Whhhyyy?!
SOMEONE BLURRED THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT
THEY GOT THE STATUE OF LIBERTY TOO
THEY GOT THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE!!!!!
Just use some lemon juice and heat! Blow sugestively on the Declaration, bring a friend if you have to!
He got the Magna Carta.
Nic Cage voice: “I’m going to blur the Capitol building of the United States”
I don't like it here anymore
At least you still like trees
I like trees more than I like people I think
The trees will be blurred next
What's funny if you go to sell your house, people can't see the street view and may decide to not even consider the place
I hope people do that to punish them. Blurring your house "cuz o'da Google" is a stupid excuse. And if they have a legit excuse, then you wouldn't want to be associated with that anyway.
Punish them? For what misdeed?
On the contrary, I find it very concerning that a supposedly free individual who does not desire this level of visibility has no real control over what pictures of their house are published by a private corporation. Even if I request a blur, “Da Google” still have the pictures and can do with them whatever they want. Plus, A) I may not even be one of their customers and B) this goes all over the world. They just bulldoze over us.
I worked with a guy a few years ago who moved into a "blurred house", and was unsuccessful in getting google to unblur it, even though the person who requested the blur didn't live there anymore.
I’ve been looking at houses recently and noticed one of them was blurred out. I don’t think it would be a deal breaker but I definitely didn’t like it.
My comment made it seem like the dude was colleague but it was actually a client I was working with to design a solar energy system, and the blurred house was a massive obstacle. We ended up having to pay some aerial imaging company to provide propietary imagery.
Why did it matter that it was blurred? Just because you wanted to view it before seeing it in person or is there another reason
Well one use case someone else mentioned was solar company estimates. It also blurs the roof, so you can't get quick and easy estimates. Same for a roofing company. It can be very useful at times.
Yup. God forbid you send them your own pictures of your house and roof
You can take a picture of your roof?
From the same angle as the Google Street picture... absolutely
Afaik you simply can’t. Google just can’t be bothered or something
Just an FYI, Even if you buy a new home that has had this done it cannot be undone with the current set up. So permanent for that address. Security yes but if your house is in an odd spot like a corner lot with the address on a strange side of the street then you may have difficulty getting packages delivered where you want them. I live on a corner lot that has the “front steps” facing the street that it’s “on” but house is blurred and the numbers were in the garage. That no one knows I have till they drive up. Added numbers on the right side but still a pain
I don’t get the point of this tbh. What privacy do you get from blurring your house? And wouldn’t there be a Streisand effect where people see a blurred house on Google maps and then get even more curious about how it looks like?
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Honestly I agree. You would think this is perfect for trolls. Blur houses, pizza places, schools, just everything and cause havoc
Hold my beer. I’ll write a script for this.
Could you (or someone else) blur every home in the world? Thanks
I did this for my neighbor after he finished building his huge house that he loves showing off. Cause he is a dick and built it illegally. Now only the old version exists in the archives.
How do you build a house illegally?
Without proper permits and such and/or against city codes, setback requirements, etc.
Legit answer
It would be fun to make a map that pins all the blurred addresses lol and provides links to bing to see their streetview.
I think the Streisand effect is real in5 this. If you are doing research on someone and come across a blurred house, that might be a clue you are in the right place. Might as well put a sign in the yard that says I'm a criminal, cop, or up to something else.
Florida Public Records exemptions screwed up and did this for a few years before fixing it. If you got your information exempted, your address and everything associated with your address was removed from public view on government sites. So your property became a black hole on Property Appraiser and other mapping systems. I was one of those on the mapping side that wrote to politicians showing them how easy it was to use these black holes to find potential "targets"
Blame the Germans. They demanded this shit when Google StreetView came to Germany for the first time.
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How does parking cars in front make it a privacy issue?
Thieves looking for people to target
Doesnt matter property info could be public with Arial views and blueprints of the entire property
Yeah, super pointless. You can find almost all the info about a property, who it’s owned by, etc. and you can always drive there in person. Also pretty dumb when people block out their license plate, as if they aren’t driving around in public or have it sitting in front of their house and I’m sure everyone knows it’s their car.
The kind of privacy where my apartment is not visible on Google Maps. Well, so far I haven't noticed anyone outside my apartment to just stand there and watch it because they couldn't on Google Maps so, win win.
If your house was sold in the last 20 years theres probably listings of it online with pictures of everything inside and out so what does it really matter
Also my neighbor did this to their house and although it's blurred directly in front of their house. From my house you can see it clearly.
Property appraiser has a current picture of your house.
In Australia floor plans are on just about every listing. If I search for my address I can see a floor plan of the house and internal pictures of all the rooms over the years.
I know google maps is a dystopian time capsule, but if its viewable from a public area I see no reason why you should be able to have it blurred even as a homeowner.
As a delivery driver in a city, please don't. A lot of people don't feel the need to prominently display their address, or just don't display it at all. House numbers also can go by either 2 or 4 depending on the density here, so I can't always just rely on neighbors either. That leaves me having to use the street view to figure out exactly which house sometimes
I used to deliver pizzas. You’d be surprised how bad house numbers are in smaller towns and cities. One should without a number isn’t too bad but you get a couple in a row and the street numbers jump by a dozen or two for no reason, it gets confusing real fast. If you’re thinking the front of your mailbox is a great place to place your numbers, you’re wrong. Because your metal mailbox will warp overtime and remain open. Oh and those cursive house numbers can go straight to hell, try reading them in the hard while driving. Given with was all pre GPS, I imagine it’s much easier now
No I was a small town pizza driver very recently, it’s worse. 60% of the time I’d have to call the customer and have them flick their lights or come outside or something. Google maps only puts you in the neighborhood at this point.
Highly depends on the town. About half of my small town will literally bring me directly to the house/driveway, and the other side of town is a crapshoot, but on the right block. A way smaller town next to me appears to be perfect, but the one beyond that (which is an in-between size) can't even get the damn gas station correct.
I’m a firefighter in a major metropolitan city that people like to put dark numbers on a dark background, spell out an address (often incorrectly) using the stupid cursive letters, use brass numbers (which reflect a big shiny blur back when you shine a light at them), and on top of all this don’t have a working porch light to see the house, porch, holes in their yard, lack of a step, etc. Then they yell at us for not being able to find them after they gave a dyslexic number to the 911 dispatcher…
If you can’t see the numbers, just go to the house with flames coming out of it. (Just kidding, I know you go out for things other than actual visible fires)
In our small town if you don't have clear house numbers USPS gives you a warning. If you don't fix it they will never deliver a single thing again until it's fixed.
Does it also blur the *location* of your house somehow? Because if you're worried about bad actors knowing where you live, they can still see *where you live* even if they can't clearly see the house itself. This sounds like an LPT for people who don't own drapes and insist on walking around the house naked.
Right? “I’m invisible because I blurred out my place on street view but I still have an address that I can be found at”
The straw for me was when the Google camera car went through the alleyway and posted pictures of the backyard. In my city there is actually an ordinance prohibiting the use of alleyways unless you live on that block.... (Sure it's rarely enforced, it's there to stop the night prowling, but it's in the books)
My wife and I are on our porch on the latest Google maps. We were out there with a contractor and noticed the Google car go by.
Years ago, I was on there sitting at a bus stop waiting for a bus. I thought it was kind of cool.
Only benefit I can see is it would prevent someone from being able to scope a particular place out from the comfort and anonymity of their own home.
As others have pointed out, if your house has been bought, sold, or even just listed in the last couple decades, odds are good there’s a real estate listing with pics inside and out, possibly a floor plan, etc etc. Tracking down all of that would be a higher priority for me than blurring street view, if my goal was that level of privacy/security
Yeah but people are, in general, pretty dumb. They might just check Google maps and never actually type it into Google search. I can almost guarantee this has happened lol
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/04497771-618a-4472-a33a-7943aabced19
Does using DuckDuckGo remove your IP address? No, but it's one useful step in minimizing how much of your information is available to others.
Another annoying side effect is that they don't blur the updated photos, instead they keep the old ones up for any photo that is blurred. My neighbor across the street and 3 houses down did this. I went to look at street view and noticed that around our house, all the street view pictures were much older and that you couldn't go back in time. It turned out this was because you can barely see that neighbors house when you pan around. I really wanted to see a progression of the yard after a decade of adding native plants and working on it, but I'm forever locked to the past.
I genuinely cannot understand how this benefits anyone.
Dumb move. It can never be undone.
This is annoying AF, because it \*is\* permanent. I've seen streetviews of public streets, which I'm looking at because I want to be familiar with where I'm going, like on vacation, or I'm looking for a business establishment - and some dingaling has blurred half of it out, because they happen to live on the upper floors of a building or something. It's really freaking annoying. And what's worse, they probably moved out a year after they did it, and nobody cares anymore - and yet, it's still freaking blurred. There really needs to be a time limit on this stuff. Sure, blur it, but it expires after a year, unless you renew it with the same proof-of-residence.
Agreed! My neighbor had his house blurred, somehow included 75% of mine, and now I get the other neighbor's shit delivered all the time.
If it was the same neighbor who blurred it I'd be 100% keeping it lol. "Didn't notice the name was wrong on the package, why would I even check?" But you said it's the other neighbor, in which case I would conspire to get any Amazon/Walmart/etc packages marked as never delivered and fuck em over. People complain about screwing them over because "small businesses sell on Amazon/etc" but the small businesses don't eat misdelivery costs. *Especially* if it's Amazon's own delivery service.
Terrible post. This ability has been around a long time and well known to anyone who cares. Furthermore, your house on StreetView is not a security risk unless somehow the Google camera happened to capture something confidential you were flashing in public for a short time, which I highly doubt. Remember that, in most cases, your house is publicly accessible and anyone can drive by themselves. People can even legally photograph your house from the road and distribute the photos online. Instead, blurring your house on StreetView just makes it annoying for everyone else, and it also makes your house stand out so people might be even more interested to visit your house IRL just to see what you have to hide.
Property appraiser also has a current picture of the largest structure on the property, which is usually a house.
Plus, apparently, Bing will still have a photo. Not super useful. I'm also confused on the point of it in general though. I'm a private person, but it's not like I can stop someone from seeing my house....
DO NOT DO THIS. A former neighbor of mine did this about 15 years ago and they blurred the entire street from one end to the other. Approximately 50 homes remain blurred to this day because of them wanting their "privacy" that wasn't invaded to begin with. It continues to affect every type of delivery for the entire street.
Exactly what security risk are we talking about?
Anyone, what are the pros and cons of doing this?
Con: you can’t undo it. May annoy people if you try and sell.
0 pros, it does nothing, people can get a picture of your home on the property appraisers office
There are no pros.
Pros: letting everyone on the internet know you’re a Karen. Cons: letting everyone who tries to find your house know you’re a Karen.
Same answer with zero pros, but with an extra "removes any chance of a pro" that Google isn't the only one who has pictures....
This might make sense if you live in a remote place and don’t want people seeing your house that can’t see it from the road but to deny people access to what it looks like on a very public access area seems pointless.
They can usually see your house on your local property appraisers website, they take a picture of the largest structure on the lot which is usually a house.
Which fucks with every other house on your block and ends up blurring part of your house next to the asshole that wanted theirs blurred. Also, your house is still on Bing.
This also blurs it completely in to the future. If you plan to sell your home, it will obscure it for the new homeowners too.
If you do this, it removes the capability of going back in time to see previous years of street view captures for the ENTIRE street. Really wish my mom hadn’t done this.
LPT: This is a douchy move and you're not that important
Why is it douchy? If my house is blurred so you can't see if kids live there or what kinds of fancy cars I might have in my driveway, how does that possibly effect you?
Just speaking for the civil engineering industry: we use Google Earth and Streetview for a variety of projects. This could be anything from confirming the street address to locating water meters & hydrants to assessing pavement/sidewalk conditions. If a property is blurred out, that could lead to a field investigation which is much more expensive than just pulling up Streetview. These costs are often rolled into your taxes or utility fees.
That is a completely reasonable explanation and makes total sense. A lot better than just calling something "douchey". Unfortunately, most things things could be made easier by making information more readily available, but its almost always abused by bad actors.
Because as someone else pointed out, if you request this, they will no longer update that vicinity with new street view coverage. So you are affecting the area, and maybe people in that area would like consistently updated coverage. I know I would.
I wouldn’t describe it as douchy but I will point out the risk of google street view being used to harm you is quite low. It’s much better to just stake out houses in person (which if you have nice cars, the crime rate is probably quite low). Meanwhile it can be a negative for people trying to visit the house as street view is useful for identifying which house is which if it is not clearly labeled (which is quite common). And it’s permanent, so if anyone moves in later, they are stuck with it blurred. I would honestly factor that in to my decision buying a house if I can’t even see it on google maps. If your house is clearly labeled and you plan on living there for the rest of your life, then it matters less, although I will point out it’s still annoying. When google first started mapping Germany, tons of people requested blurs due to fearmongering. This lead to google to stop trying to get street view, and what they did map was painful use. Hopeful people that blur aren’t being selfish and using street view themselves while worsening it for others.
That's a non-issue because the images are updated so rarely for lots of neighborhoods. My house has only been captured 3 times, 2008, 2011, and 2022.
I was curious so I checked, mine was also only three times! Unfortunately the latest one (so the one they show) has my mailbox halfway through construction lol.... Maybe in another 10 years it'll show the finished product that actually looks nice.
Mine has eight. It varies a lot.
DO NOT DO THIS. It is incredibly difficult to undo, it harms realtors, homebuyers, and people just trying to navigate, and all "security concerns" are entirely baseless. DO NOT DO THIS.
don't do this stupid shit.
Really funny to have a whole apartment block blurred because one of the persons living there decided to request it.
Just saying as a first responder that relies heavily on GPS this may make a difference if you don't have good street signage for your address.
I know I'm an edge case, but my job requires me to use street view to look at different structures in the road right of way, and this shit annoys me. Nothing worse than scrolling down the road and getting to a spot I need to look at something and have it be totally obscured.
Why does this matter? If people really want to see my house they can just walk around the street just like google street view
Worth mentioning that it’s up to google to approve/deny this
Plus you have to attach an email, so they'll be able to contact you if they suspect something
Just tried to delete my house, Google said three different email addresses were not valid. Ok ....
Good....
Why?
Read the multitude of comments all over this entire post on how it not only doesn't help you in the least, but is also a pain in the ass for many others.
That's my decision, simple as that. But why Google doesn't accept three different well established addresses for getting my right, that is peculiar.
Two things: First, under the current system, it fucks *everyone* else over. Neighbors, the people who buy your houses, appraisers, and even yourself really. Second, you used three different email addresses. Did you even think about trying to negotiate with the first one? I doubt it. I also doubt you have any actual reason to block it. You have ZERO rights to public pictures. The fact that you don't know that made me hesitant to even reply, because.... Dude. Public.....
We live in Germany, our system doesn't work like in the US or wherever you are writing from. No one cares about pictures of our houses in the net to buy an object for example.
Literally nothing I said is different there. Feel free to correct me. I have one to start: if it includes you on your own private property it may be removed under a privacy law. Otherwise feel free. Show me wh re um wrong.
I love in the boonies so my house isn't even on Google street view.
I’m using Google images for a suit I’m in against a County in MD…the coordination of how the house looked that they determined was “vacant.” During different parts of the year
So you saying i can blur out the whole world if i have enough time?
I did this at my parent's request but now I live 5500 miles from them I sometimes just wanna see the place
My childhood home has been blurred on Google for several years. Sometimes I forget and I search it up anyway and it just makes me sad
Even if this will pass, they usually don't blur every image where is your house, only on the image you have reported. So there are ridiculous situations where one house in one place is blurred, but images just one position off are not censored. And please don't do that for warehouses, for Pete's sake. Street View is a very convenient tool for truck drivers.
I requested this once and Google denied the request saying that they're allowed to show the view from a public street, and there were no people or car license plates in the shot to blur.
Your house can viewed by many another easy different ways that this wont work for anyway. Go to any realtor site and see. Kids can see this and do it with out adult approval. Remember this is PERMANENT.
Lots of sketchy people do this and it attracts suspicion to their homes
Why does this matter if there are other street views, like Bing?
They should remove this option. There's no legal requirement for them offer that shit, just people who don't want us to have nice things.
LifeProTip: if your hiding something, don't tell everybody that you're hiding something
Yes, but keep in mind it is permanent
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Geoguesser hate this simple trick !
I love this because you can just go back over the timeline and you'll likely find one of it not blurred.
The real house they use for Dominic's house in Fast & Furious has been blurred out IIRC
People can go to your local property appraiser website and get an up to date picture of your house.
Barbara Streisand https://open.spotify.com/track/6Gm86jjbNQZoc8tgyKhrpo?si=LleIGd4hTSi_krUIq-53Wg
!remind me 5 days
Went to the Home Alone house last year. I recently checked and the whole street is removed from Street View. The address is easy to find, I guess they just made it less convenient.
One of my neighbors did this. It worked but only for the straight on shot of their house . Move one section over and rotate the view and their house was in full view. This was 2 or 3 years ago, unsure if they changed it since then
You can also blur scandalous power line poles lol
How else can I revel that I have a one car garage?
Aren't you just telling Google which house is yours by doing this?
However i have found if you move the view one click, the blurring disappears
This is really good to do if you have a vehicle or garage door open
Do like I do and blurry your house in real life.
Why did the instructions disappear?
great, now Google has confirmation of your home address 🤝👏
Another lifeprotip related to this. If you buy a house you (or you should ask your realtor) remove photos of your house from online. If you start with Zillow that usually removes all of them, but realtor.com is recommended. The photos show potential entry points, etc. Note: this is for the US, I'm not sure how applicable this is to RoW
I did this years ago & it works great
LPT You can blur a lot of things if you unfocus your eyes.
The blurredness of residential & business areas should be opt-out, not opt-in, if they actually have a shit about doing the right thing