Google Street View’s ability to calculate car accident risks is digital tech writ large | John Naughton

A new study suggests that machine-learning software, used in conjunction with Street View, can provide more accurate insurance premiums

Google Street View is one of the wonders of the contemporary world. It’s a product of the arrogance, ambition, chutzpah and unconscionable wealth of a single corporation that decided it would photograph every street in the world and put the images online. When it was first announced, I was sceptical that it would amount to much – images of prominent streets in large towns and cities in western countries, perhaps, but nothing much more than that. And then one day I was wondering how to find my way to a friend’s cottage located in a remote rural area, looked it up on Google Maps, saw the Street View icon and clicked on it – and found myself virtually driving down the narrowest country lane you can imagine.

Street View was a product of Google’s conviction that it is easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission, an assumption apparently confirmed by the fact that most jurisdictions seemed to accept the photographic coup as a fait accompli. There was pushback in a few European countries, notably Germany and Austria, with citizens demanding that their properties be blurred out; there was also a row in 2010 when it was revealed that Google had for a time collected and stored data from unencrypted domestic wifi routers. But broadly speaking, the company got away with its coup.

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from US news | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2PxAVvL