Thursday, March 16, 2006
Gawker Stalker: Realtime New York Celebrity Map
Just saw this Google Maps mashup mentioned on BBC World here in my hotel, so I thought I had better let other Google Mappers out there know about a mashup getting some major press play. Gawker Media has put up a Google Map that shows the realtime locations of celebrities in New York City. The Google Maps mashup is called Gawker Stalker. Users can email their sightings to a gawker address and those tips are then mapped out for other users to follow. Some are calling it the killer celeb tracking app, while others (A PR Agent was interviewed on BBC World) say that it pushes the personal privacy envelope.
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6 comments:
You've got to admire anyone who would violate the google maps terms of use (http://www.google.com/apis/maps/terms.html) so blatantly.
Or maybe they're just bad at reading...
Adam
Unfortunately, it appears some individuals do not distinguish between what "can" be done and what "should" (or should not) be done.
I'm interested to see if Google let's this one live as the first item in their terms of agreement 1.4 says,
You will not: defame, abuse, harass, stalk, threaten or otherwise violate the legal rights (such as rights of privacy and publicity) of others;
If I were Google (can I refer to it as a single entity?), I would enjoy pulling the plug on this type of nonsense.
Would you complain if the page was entitled "Celebrity Sightings"?
I think there is a difference between people noting that they just happened to spot a celebrity and someone following them around.
If you put someone's (very) recent location on the map, particularly a celebrity, you are inviting people to track them down, invade their privacy, and potentially put them in an unsafe environment. I would object to it under another name, but I'm also one of those people who can't understand why anyone would buy gossip tabloids.
Tabloids, paparazzi, bennifers, brangolinas...I don't get it. And I'm OK with that.
CNN.com has an article on this:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/TV/03/21/celeb.stalker.site.ap/index.html
Their online poll has 78% saying this goes too far by encroaching on privacy.
I appreciate the novelty of this celebrity map, but I do worry about the potential privacy implications for the celebs being tracked. That being said, it's still a fascinating concept that speaks to our culture's obsession with celebrity.
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