Isabel, bearing in mind where I live ;-), there are thousands of orange men!  And I doubt any of them are guilty of not weeding my flower beds :-D

>It doesn't work with all addresses

I've even tried my old address in Westminster, and it's not possible there either!

:-D

My old Chingford address is viewable although the houses have had so many changes since I left in 1985 I can't recognise no.21!

>> Who do I complain to?
> The orange man.

........ Garr, That David Dickinson gets on everything these days.

I can see the Library in Enfield where I used to work.  That makes me quite sad.  Wish I had a time machine....

Well, I can report something that is even more worrying than pictures of our houses appearing on line ......apparently the Times on Line has highlighted the place where we live twice in the last three weeks as a weekend retreat - not "trendy" but .................

We want to keep it that way!

Nova
On the map you should see a little orange man at the top of the scale.  Click and drag the little orange man to where you want him to stand and look. :-)

my street isnt on it :(  must be too rural.

> krusewalker i agree, i hadnt even known that it was happening, im furious. you can see right in some of my neighbours houses <IMG class=qButton title="Quote selected text" height=10 alt="Quote selected text" src="/images/mi_quote.gif" width=20>

Not my cup of tea either, but then I'm a very private person, and find it invasive.  I tried my address, and dragged the little man, but can only get an aerial view.  You can see they are huge gardens, and who has got sheds etc, but even cars on the drive are blurred, you couldn't tell the make of them.  Will this alter, and will people actually be able to see my front door?  God, the thought is distasteful to me!

My address is not on but once I worked out how to use it, I found my Mum and Step-dad sat on a bench in their garden clear as day!

Mine isn't either Suz, but I'm quite rural too. Only the major cities near where I live are viewable.

I doubt anyone will be able to get too close to our front door - we have a drive leading off the road - I wouldn't mind if someone was taking pictures of our house from the roadside but if they came on our drive I would be a bit cross (and they'd probably get told off by my Malamute too :-D)

Just checked my sister-in-laws address in Glasgow.  She lives on a private road and they have not gone up there.  Mine is a private road, although I don't know if the orange man will know that, so I wonder if I need to tidy my front garden after all.

the car with its strange camera on the roof is in my area at the moment. Will be interesting to see the view of my house as i was watching him out the window as he went past. i was pointing and telling hubby the car was passing lol

Phew, we're not on there yet, got time to cut the grass and tidy up! :-)

> i was pointing and telling hubby the car was passing

Look forward to seeing that :-)  What have they progressed to now?  Are you still in a fairly large town?

I'm really confused - can anyone give me alink or simple directions on how to use it? I can move my orange man but then nothing happens :-)

My house isn't there, I doubt it will ever be on the google street level map, being down a country lane and all, well it isn't at the moment anyway and to be honest I'm feeling quite pleased about that.

I enjoy my privacy. I've too used google map to suss out puppy buyers, personally although I use it, I have felt it intrusive to be able to look into people's lives this way, look into their gardens and view their homes, in a way we are buying into the idea that we can all be watched by the powers that be, we are only one step away from things being live, (I know there are privacy laws etc, but what we don't know about we can't complain of) I always look to the future with things like this. I can remember an episode of CSI where they could zoom live into one of the agents houses and he could even see his dog sat on the sofa. :-)  I just know whatever us mere mortals get to see and use we are always years behind the technology used by the powers that be.

More importantly can you see yourself or your dogs? It's brilliant, it really is.

It might feel like fun to view our friends and neighbours, but it is just bringing us one step closer to having our lives continuously looked over, I feel like this with nothing to hide..... except for my privacy, I have this terrible foreboding of us in the future feeling like zoo animals.

My pesimistic view!

I'm really confused - can anyone give me alink or simple directions on how to use it? I can move my orange man but then nothing happens 

If nothing happens the area you are looking at is not at street level yet................ quite a lot of the country is not covered as of yet. :-)

Where are you looking FredsMum? The service is only available for a few citys and major towns so far.
Have I got this wrong or have we lost Birdseye view which is what I have been using up to now and seemed to be more wide spread than this.

My privacy is very important to me too, but not what is seen in Google :-)  My thoughts and feelings are very private, only to be shared with a special few.  Big brother can spy on me all he wants, I don't and won't let it get in the way of me enjoying my life :-)

Each to their own though - it's humanly impossible to please everyone :-)

>I have felt it intrusive to be able to look into people's lives this way, look into their gardens and view their homes

As far as I can see it shows nothing more than can be seen from the road anyway.

It'd be very interesting from the point of view of selling puppies, to see if the house looks appropriate for the dog - you wouldn't necessarily want to sell a giant breed to live in a teeny tiny house or flat.

I gueesed my area wouldnt be done yet (devon) but even when i tried looking at London nothing happened

It works for some bits of London (Birdcage Walk, for example) but not in more sensitive areas like Parliament Square.

I'm not on yet either, but suspect they wont get much as we have big iron gates with a security code entry system so not much to see from the road.
  ( I wonder how many people will get caught out with 'the milkman's car' outside....so to speak! )

> I wonder how many people will get caught out with 'the milkman's car' outside....so to speak! <IMG alt=eek src="/images/eek.gif">

lol or the postman knocks twice... easy to get caught with those big red trolleys they push now ;)

Ooooooh!!!! :-O  Scandalous! No cars on my driveway :-) Phew!!!

Just checked my house out, my car's on the drive so must have been on a Weds & my bedroom curtains are closed so I must have been still in bed , everyone else's are open though so I must have been being lazy ;)

I think it's a great idea especially if you were booking a holdiay & wanted to see the area around etc, it's basically just a step up from google earth!  Can't really see what people are getting the kinckers in a twist about!!

Can't really see what people are getting the kinckers in a twist about!!

Unless you can see your undies out on the washing line :-)

Haha yes my colleagues clothes are out on the line, but she thinks it's great :-)

I read in the paper that Wally from 'Where's Wally' is hidden in one of the images!

Update: he's been found!! at 77 High Street, Putney! :-D

I supposed I'm a bit inured to all of this - having had our house on the market for two years - and shown on the website for the same period - complete with rooms (and, horror of horrors, dirty cups on the draining board) - its just life!

And we could see our new house quite easily, the same way :)

Actually Isabel ours is at the end of a private road as well so I'm not sure if they'll come to take pics. I heard on the radio that certain things have been taken off the maps after Google received complaints - apparently the maps showed one man going in to a sex shop and a man being sick amongst other things!! (notice how they were all men!)

My OH was made up with Google Earth as you could see his old car (his pride and joy that he sadly had to sell) on if you zoomed in close enough!

My street is a small cul-de-sac and they have taken pics of it.  I had a good zoom in on my house and I swear you can see an outline of me sat on the sofa lol.  I was hoping to see the dog up at the window in his usual daytime stance :)

If your house is on you can report it and they will will blank it out - although it will probably look bizarre if you live in a semi-detached or a terraced house as there will be a big blanked out space instead of the house!!!

I can get the street map, but how do you get it live?  I assume from the heading you can see live pictures or have I got it wrong.

no, not any live pics. the photos have been taken by the google cars that drive around with 4 way cameras attatched.

Thank you, I will stop trying then.  Still excellent photo's though.