divvyy

That was problematic too. Making such surveillance imagery even more easily obtainable is even worse, especially considering the power of gathering multiple sets of data and correlating the findings. It doesn't have to be a single photo, a stalker could purchase multiple photos of multiple locations of interest on a regular basis.

In terms of potential harm, it's like the difference between a handgun and nuclear bomb.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't complain about services that launch even more of such ships.

This offering is a stalker's delight. The only thing that would make it worse is if they paid people to turn up to a specified location and take photos, like some sort of Uber for creeps.

At minimum, they should have a form where you can opt out of having your home included in this sold imagery. Better would be to notify all property owners and dwellers within a photographed region that the imagery has been purchased, with an option to opt-out. Best of all would be if everyone being photographed had to opt-in before a sale could be made. That would be a company taking privacy seriously rather than trying to profit from breaching it in bulk.

This is a horrendous privacy violation. Being able to purchase high resolution, newly-created images of arbitrary locations is way over the line of an acceptable offering. This will be used to stalk and harass individuals. There's no mention on their website of how they plan to prevent this type of intrusive surveillance either.

Loads of people complain about the NSA's bulk data collection for the purposes of national security, but we barely see any opposition to bulk aerial imaging such as this, despite it being even more of a privacy breach due lack of safeguards around who can obtain and exploit such data.