In George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, the hero, Winston Smith, starts out by hating Big Brother, and ends up - in a moment of terrible capitulation - by loving him. My own relationship with Google, the trusted computer search engine, is travelling in the opposite direction.

 

Recently it emerged that Google vehicles are even now circling Britain, filming views of every single street for publication on its new StreetView site.

 

This innovation will render any given front door in, say, Grimsby, immediately visible to a viewer in Gdansk, prompting howls of outrage from those who say it is a "burglar's charter".

 

Unfortunately, they might well be right. Of course, the information on the situation of houses was technically available to burglars already, in the same way that the entire lyrics of Van Morrison were available to me, should I have wished to expend unavailable time and energy on tracking them down.

 

But I never did, and now the joy of googling means that they are instantly available at the click of a mouse, precisely as a close-up of the front of my flat soon will be to any bored burglar.

 

We should never underestimate the power of sloth as an inhibitor to investigation. Of course burglars are lazy, because otherwise they would have a proper job with longer hours. By making the dreary nitty-gritty of a burglar's work that much easier, however, we will encourage him to pursue the job in record time: Google, take a bow.

 

Google is committed to making the unknown knowable, and shrinking the entire world to the portable size of a laptop computer.

 

See whole article here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jh...7/13/do1304.xml

 

not really.... it might make it simple to view properties but the detail isnt that great. besides most burglaries are oportunistic and local, i dont think a scummy chav on h will use the internet to sus out a house!

If I didn't live in a block of flats where you could only get in using a key (or buzzing you), I'd be worried - this, plus someone high up last week saying that burglars shouldn't be locked up, means that the number of victims of burgling is only going to go one way.