Google StreetView-petrol saver or privacy invader?

I've been taken aback by just how extensively busy Google have been in roaming around Australia, building what must be a massive collection of streetviews. I've had the pleasure and priviledge of living in some fairly small, out of the way places through the course of my life, so imagine my amazement when I find that StreetView has been down some of those backroads with their camera cars. It's both simultaneously gobsmackingly good in terms of being able to reflect back over places I've grown up and being able to share those memories with friends and family, but also uncannily eerily evocative of an Orwellian 1984. I can understand why it has privacy advocates rattling their sabres.

A lot of work I've been doing recently has been focused on Capital Asset Management and lifecyle condition monitoring of built assets: in this application, StreetView provides a fantastic adjunct to applications and business value, especially when trying to monitor asset condition remotely, across very widely dispersed areas of coverage. In this instance, it's useful for being able to find ones way to them, and have an idea of building appearance. The streetview image collection will only represent a point in time snapshot though, making it unsuitable for anything other than location/identification purposes. Still, nice to have been able to spare my wife and kids many hours in a car travelling to familiiar places to share the hidden joys of them. I'm still working out how to feel about the whole thing..