Rogers & Internet: How can they screw it up?

Back in May I reflected on my experiences with migrating my Aurora Cable Internet (ACI) to Rogers services. I've since realized that I haven't finished the story to include Rogers' incompetence in this migration process for Internet.

(As an aside, if Rogers can screw up the Cable and Internet migration from ACI to Rogers, how much better can the transition for Rogers Home Phone customers actually be? I will not know since my phone is not through Rogers....MEMO TO ROGERS...do not approach me for Home Phone service as I'm not interested at this time and not for some time to come due to your incompetence of your Vice-President's "Specially Trained Advisors" and Store Staff when I migrated from ACI to Rogers' services for Cable and Internet...but then again...if your staff can't take down a simple cell phone number or bother to call me at work...Rogers' staff is probably not reading this...so I digress....)

On Saturday May 9th I ventured over to Rogers Plus Store #311 at 14879 Yonge Street, Aurora to migrate my Aurora Cable Internet (ACI) Internet over to Rogers High Speed Internet. Yvonne and I had reviewed our needs and decided to go with the Rogers Lite Speed Internet for our use rather than the Rogers Express Speed Internet. Rogers was offering the Express Speed Internet at the same price as the old ACI Internet. Yvonne and I decided for the amount of Internet we used, Lite Speed would work and if, for whatever reason, we could always updgrade to Expess if the need arised.

Obviously with my experience with the incompetancies of the Rogers' "Specially Trained Advisors" in trying to figure out my cable needs, I didn't want to do it through them.

Yvonne and I got in line and waited thirty minutes to speak to a Rogers Associate to complete this migration. Yvonne had to run home to get a few things as I was dealing with the associate to complete the conversion. I explained and pointed out in the Rogers brochure that I wanted the Rogers Lite Speed Internet. The Associate circled what I wanted on the brochure and inquired if I had any questions. I didn't at this point as I had completed my own research and was happy with this particular package because I could always upgrade to something more if my Internet needs changed.

It took about ten minutes of typing and to cash out in order to complete the conversion from ACI to Rogers. I even took advantage of purchasing my own Rogers Internet Modem which gave me three free months of Internet and, following this, three dollars a month Modem rental fees. This basically gave me a free modem and savings each month of the modem fees.

As I was leaving the store I realized that nothing had been signed by myself and the Rogers Associate to show an agreement had been made. All I had was a receipt to show my purchase. So I called the Rogers Migration department as shown in the Rogers' Migration letter written and signed by Rogers' Vice President Phil Hartling (1-866-566-8306).

The representative picked up the call and reminded me the call may be recorded for the usual "Quality Assurance Purposes" (insert guffaws here). I explained I just finished migrating my ACI Internet Service over to Rogers and was double checking what speed Internet I had just signe up for at the Rogers Plus Store. To my shock and amazement: "Extreme Speed" was the response.

I turned back around to the Rogers Plus Store #311 and got back into line again. This time I started to talk to the other ACI Customers around me about my experience of that day. To say the least, it wasn't long before I was invited to get out of the line and to talk with the Rogers Plus Store Supervisor, Jay about my issue.

Jay quickly refunded the "Rogers Express Service" and put on the "Rogers Lite Service". He signed the receipt and I signed the receipt as well.

I walked outside the store and called the "1-866-566-8306" number again. I received the same information as before that I was still signed up for the Rogers Express Internet Service. I inquired how this could be when the Rogers Plus Store Supervisor, Jay, had done it. The Agent said she would reattempt but couldn't because my account had been locked by someone at the store who were working on it. I inquired as to who the Rogers Plus Store #311's store manager was. I didn't get a reply on the phone but did in front of me. Deb, who was assisting another customer, said she would be right with me. I hung up my cell phone and waited.

Deb inquired what the issue was. So I started at the beginning with the cable issues. She inquired if I wanted cable now and I replied that I wasn't interested as if Rogers couldn't answer a simple question on the first try on one of it's "bread and butter" services the obviously couldn't complete a connection involving a guy on a latter as that may prove too complicated.

I then went through the disaster of hooking up with Rogers Internet at this store. I then said that I would give them one last chance to make this right otherwise I would be requesting a full refund and leaving Rogers' services for good. Deb didn't take kindly to that saying it was only "a threat". Recognizing that she was probably using the Rogers Customer Service lines to try and guiltify the customer into backing down I continued on. I replied that at this point it is "a threat" and that if she wanted me as a customer she should get to work on resolving the issue where her staff had failed before or "the threat" may come true.

Deb then investigated the billing system, it was completed right. She then had the associate call the store's technical contact. The technical contact fixed the issues and confirmed with me on the phone what I ordered and that the billing and Work order matched. I was now, after 2 hours of screwing around with Rogers' "Specially Trained Customer Service Agents" and in the store satisfied.

On May 13th, the day my ACI service was turned off and my Rogers service was turned was interesting. I unhooked my ACI Cable modem and began hooking up my Rogers Modem. No problems so far. I flicked on my computer and began surfing. Everything seemed to be working fine (GREAT!). Next, I signed up for a Rogers online account entering in all the numbers that were supplied to me, etc. I was shocked to find I owed fifteen and change. Of course since I hadn't received my first bill, the charges weren't explained. So I called 1-877-236-7208 included in the modem package and selected the appropriate option and waited a minute before a Rogers Agent picked up the phone.

To my shock and horror the person actually: 1. Spoke plain Canadian English. 2. Knew exactly what she was talking about and 3. Was able to resolve my issue.

The Rogers Agent explained the charge was for activation of the Internet. I explained the story about how I came to be a Rogers customer. The Rogers Agent agreed that theoretically I was more of an "Adopted Customer" rather than a "New Customer". She said a credit back for the activation was in order but she would have to check with the supervisor on how to properly do this so there wouldn't be any issues in the future. After a couple of minutes on hold the Rogers Agent came back on the line to say she had put through the credit and it would show up on my next bill. She also confirmed my three free months of internet were there and I was still signed up for Rogers Lite Speed Internet. I told her I was satisfied and hung up.

To say the least, Rogers Customer Service needs an overhaul. With the exception of the Rogers Agent who fixed the Activation fee billing, I've dealt with incompetence from start to finish. It is no wonder Rogers continues to be sucking up money left, right and centre.

As I review my history (most of it pretty recent) with Rogers, I wonder why I'm still with Rogers and haven't transferred to Bell. Oh wait a minute, Bell has similar issues with Customer Service, Billing and other issues.

Kudos to either Bell or Rogers who will stop advertising in the Toronto Star and other newspapers about how Rogers beats Bell on Home Phone service and how Bell beats Rogers on Wireless and Television service and instead advertise how one or the other has better Customer Service. But then again, if one had better Customer Service than the other then this wouldn't need be adverised, Customers would just know and flock to that company. But that again makes too much sense. And apparently Rogers, at least, doesn't care about making too much sense with Customer Service because if they did their Vice Presidential called "Specially Trained Advisors" would know what they are talking about and be able to resolve my issues and, shudder, copy down a telephone number without it having to be repeated five times. Only if...but then again, I've been called too practical sometimes. Apparently Rogers can't be too practical as that would be too easy.

Fire Trucks & Fridge Magnets

The Toronto Star reported the results of their investigation this morning in the paper. The investigation took a look at the high response times of Toronto firefighters to fires within the city of Toronto. Of course the City of Toronto officials weren’t that helpful in the investigation. Toronto Fire chief, Bill Stewart, did provide some documentation and some statistical analysis. But when the Star reporter asked a few more questions (i.e. the call time starts in the reports when the dispatcher first saved the call to the computer system, but what is the actual time when the call came in?) Stewart’s reply was “You as a reporter should not be looking at this information.” That obviously smells that something is being covered up for either a purposeful reason (i.e. Toronto Fire has something to hide) or to avoid possible legal issues. The only people to know this reside within the Toronto Fire department. But this isn’t the only worrisome issue.

Further along in the same article the process of dispatching trucks is mentioned. The average response time in North American standards is six minutes from when the call first comes in. The standard breaks down that the 911 dispatcher takes and dispatches the call (1 minute), the firefighters get to their truck and onto the street (1 minute) and the time the truck has to get to the fire or emergency scene (4 minutes). In terms of Toronto’s most recent largest fire, the fire at Sunrise Propane, Toronto fire took way longer than 6 minutes to arrive at the explosive fire scene.

The breakdown of the sequence of events at Toronto Fire during the Sunrise Propane fire scene just boggles the mind. The times provided by the City of Toronto and reported by the The Toronto Star makes a Toronto resident’s heart skip a beat. The first dispatch time recorded by the Toronto Fire dispatcher’s computer is 3:49 A.M. “It took close to two minutes for dispatch to notify and contact fire crews in several stations, all about 2.5 kilometres away.” (Toronto Star Article). At the fire hall it took the crew of Pumper 145 two and half minutes to get onto the road to the fire. Pumper 145 was the first on the scene 10 minutes after the first original call was recorded. Let’s also keep in mind the travel time in Toronto of Pumper 145 wasn’t hampered by traffic on the way to the fire as fire occurred overnight on a Saturday to Sunday when traffic is virtually non-existant. Which the Star reported: ” none of the these vehicles were more than a few minutes’ drive away.”

Perhaps one of the largest issues the Star found is the antiquated dispatch system Toronto Fire uses to dispatch their equipment to emergencies. The equipment is tracked using magnets on a magnetic map of Toronto. Each fire is recorded on the map and then the magnet of a dispatched piece of equipment is moved to it. Apparently this is the system that has been in use since the amalgamation of Toronto in 1998. So basically, Toronto Fire dispatchers keep track of location of their equipment with fridge magnets at all times. Meanwhile over at the the city’s public transit department (TTC) each surface vehicle (e.g. streetcar, bus, etc.) is tracked by GPS units so that transit control knows exactly where each unit is. Surely th Toronto Fire Department can create a dispatch system that uses this already in use GPS technology to track its vehicles, location of fire halls and situations on the go. But there is no promise from the Toronto Star investigation that this is the case.

The City of Toronto needs to wake up and improved it’s dispatching system. The evidence the Toronto Star uncovered may only be the the tip of the iceberg of issues at the fire department. A complete review of the dispatch system first needs to be undertaken. First an audit of the existing system needs to be completed to find the deficiencies. Second a review of other municipal fire systems in North American cities and suburbs should be looked at for best practices that could be included in a new Toronto Fire dispatch system. Finally a plan needs to be put together for a new Toronto dispatch system from when the 911 call comes in to when the first fire truck is on the scene.

But Fire Chief Bill Stewart needs to be told empatically by the Mayor and the citizens of Toronto that this statement will not suffice in terms of this new system (as the Toronto Star reported): “[Bill Stewart] As president of the Metropolitan Fire Chiefs Association, he is backing a move to change the standard to allow firefighters longer to get out the door to a blaze [by 20 seconds].” This is unacceptable as the current standard is one minute for the firefighters to get to their trucks and out the door. When, as has been espoused to youngsters across Canada over and over by firefighters, ‘in a fire every second counts’ a request of just give them an extra twenty seconds is strictly unacceptable. But then again, if the city of Toronto continues to a five year old’s fridge magnets to track their million dollar pieces of equipment then perhaps it will take firefighters that much longer to get to a fire. What a sad state of affairs it is at Toronto fire when the City’s own transit system has a better dispatch and location program in place than the Toronto fire department does.

Reflections on Life Without Cable

When I decided to give up cable due to "Rogers' Specially Trained Customer Disservice Agents" I figured this would free up a lot of time to do other things.

I figured I would be enjoying blogging a little more than once a week and updating my website more often as well with pictures and writing. Well that hasn't happenned in the two weeks that have passed without cable. I figured, backed then, I would be blogging may two to three times per week on various topics that caught my interest. I also figured I would finally be through formatting, uploading and organizing my pictures from the week in Ottawa I had in January. But again, this didn't happen.

Instead I've discovered my Nintendo Wii and Mario Kart. I've played more on that in the past two weeks then I have probably played with it since the beginning of January.

I've also discovered the joy of reading again by polishing off Marley & My by John Grogan from the Aurora Public Library (which is well worth the read!). Hopefully soon I will be able to find the movie at the Library as well since I'm too cheap to rent it!

But I still hold out the possibility of expanding my web life via my website and this here blog. Maybe or maybe not....

Awkwardness without Cable

This past Wednesday at work my coworkers were having a conversation. There was a large group of ten to twelve of us sitting down for a celebration for a coworker. I found myself in sitting in the middle of one side of the table. To my right the conversation moved towards the television show Lost. Since I don't have cable and have barely watched the show I decided to change my attention to my left where another conversation was taking place.

To my horror they were discussing America's Next Top Model. I sat there kind of dumbfounded how to conversations ended up talking about television.

I just wanted to scream that there was life outside of television! There was a big world out there without television. But one of my foibles is being polite. So I just there quietly just wishing the topic of conversation would change either to my left or right, which it did.

Life without Cable Television

Today is the third day without cable television in my home. It was a long and frustrating point to get there. But so far so good and there will probably be future blog entries here on the subject (watch the Label "Life without Cable" for more entries in the future).

So a quick rewind of how life without cable came to be. Back in February of 2008 Aurora Cable Internet sold out to Rogers Communications. Aurora Cable Internet (ACI) was the last old cable television provider in the Greater Toronto Area not to sell out Rogers. ACI serviced the town of Aurora and Oak Ridges (north Richmond Hill) for over forty years. As a resident of Aurora for most of my life I grew up with Aurora Cable providing the Suddard family with cable television and, eventually, Internet services. ACI always seem to take care of us whenever something happenned to our cable service or if we had any questions.

So when I returned to Aurora and got my own apartment, I didn't even think about going anywhere else (i.e. Bell) for cable and Internet services. I merely looked up the rates, called ACI, asked a couple of questions and had an appointment to be hooked up to services in no time. The best part, unlike horror stories that any Rogers customer will tell you about, ACI picked up the phone in 2 telephone rings max and actually knew what they were talking about!

Back in February 2008 though, the writing seemed to be on the wall for the demise of ACI. Rogers had succesfully applied and received approval from the CRTC to begin "overwiring" the ACI service area. This meant Rogers could now begin to offer services to the Aurora and Oak Ridges area. Rogers claimed they were at an unfair disadvantage as their main communications rival, Bell, in the Aurora area because they couldn't provide television, internet or telephone service to Aurora or Oak Ridges residents. ACI did provide a counter that they provided more local programming (VERY TRUE!) than Rogers does on their channel 10. However, it was to no avail and the CRTC approved Rogers to overwire the Aurora and Oak Ridges area. With the death notice of ACI practically begun to be written, courtesy of the CRTC, ACI owner Jim Irvine decided to finally sell to Rogers.

Fast forward to March 2009. In the mail I receive a notice from Rogers that the ACI migration to Rogers services will begin. I have until May 13th to switch to Rogers services as ACI services will be disconnected in my area. The letter was from Rogers Vice President of Consumer Services Phil Hartling who wrote that:

Rest assured, we will continue to provide you with the quality of customer service you have come to expect from ACI. It is our goal to help make the transition as smooth as possible for you....We have a dedicated team of specially-trained Advisors ready to speak to you about the full suite of quality services that Rogers has to offer as well as answer any questions you may have.

With this assurance I examined the website that Rogers had set up for this transition. I found the Internet pretty quickly and figured we could use the "Rogers lite speed Internet" package in order to save a few sheckles. Moving onto Rogers Basic cable things got a little more difficult.

All I wished was to continue to have the regular basic cable service that ACI provided without the need for a cable box. I visited the Rogers transition website for the channel line up Rogers would provide on their basic cable service without a box. But on the Rogers website it only lists the channels and not what is in the basic package or enhanced packages. So I printed out the channel line up, grabbed my pen and headed off to the local Rogers Plus store at Yonge Street & Dunning Avenue in Aurora to inquire about the channel line up and inquire if I were to bundle my services how much I could save.

The Rogers Plus store visit was a bit of a dissapointment. The letter from Phil Hartling of Rogers said I could either call the 1-866 number or visit the Rogers Plus store for assistance on the migration. However, apparently the special advisors at the Rogers Plus store work banker's hours (9 to 5ish) but the supervisor on duty did assist with the bundling question I had. However, for the cable channel line up he tried his best but suggested I call the "Special Advisors" at the 1-866 number for my channel line up question.

So I returned home and called the Aurora Cable Internet migration phone number (1-866-566-8306). The first advisor picked up and told me that the call would be recorded for quality assurance and training purposes. Next he asked me how he could help. I told him what I currently had with ACI and what I was aiming at switching over to with Rogers in terms of Cable and Internet. I then posed the question to him about the channel line up.

He rattled off the channel numbers that were included. When he was finished I asked the question? "So Fox is no longer offered on the basic cable package on channel 28?" The customer rep responded that Fox is Channel 19 according to the printed copy he had. I tried explaining how I got my channel line up off www.rogers.com/auroracable His reply was management had printed off his channel line up and his was right. I asked to speak to a supervisor about this discrpancy. The Rogers, as Roger's Vice President of Consumer Services labelled him, "specially trained Advisor" said the supervisor or manager was currently unavailable. Hmmm..how convenient I said that as soon as a major problem comes up, Rogers' managment is missing in action. The Rogers advisor and I argued in circles over and over about how not knowing the basic information of where a cable channel is located and whether it is located in basic television package or not was an issue that he couldn't resolve until I hung up in frustration.

I called the 1-866 number back again in hopes I would get a "specially trained advisor" a little more down to earth. However, my hopes were shot within seconds as I could barely understand the person as she explained that "this call was recorded for quality...blah, blah, blah, blah." Apparrently I stumbled across a "specially trained Advisor" who was not specially trained in the English language (funny enough I double checked the letter from the Vice President of Rogers and there is no mention that the specially trained Advisors would speak English coherently...funny I would assume they would).

Nonetheless I continued on asking the same questions I did on the previous call. She went through the same channel numbers as my previous phone call and gave me the same response when inquired about the status of Fox television. But things got a little more interesting. This time when leading her slowly through to the www.rogers.com/auroracable website, she claimed that address was ACI's internet address and not Rogers' channel line up. Apparently this "specially trained Advisor" had been "specially trained wrong!". I countered that this was the website adress that Rogers' Vice Presidnet, Phil Hartling requested ACI customers to use to transition to Rogers via the letter. She disagreed that this was true even though I possessed a signed letter from Roger's own Vice-President. I asked to speak to the supervisor or manager about the issue. She said one wasn't available and she inquired if I was ready to migrate. I replied I wasn't until the problem with the channel line up had been resolved. She seemed dumbfounded and I hung up her as well.

I called a third time and got another female "specially trained Advisor" that at least spoke English. This call didn't resolve my channel line up easier. So after an hour of trying to deal with Rogers about basic cable in one night and four different interactions (1 at Rogers Plus store and 3 phone calls to the "specially trained Advisors" without supervision) I was no further ahead in getting the last question answered.

The next day, during work hours, I called the 1-866 number again with some hope. There would be a new batch of "specially trained Advisors" who might have a better answer. But hope was lost again as I called in and again the call was answered by someone barely speaking English. I again, for the fourth time, explained my problem. This time I skipped the usual questions and go straight to the point and asked to speak to a manager. She put me on hold for two to three minutes then returned to say the supervisor was unavailable and if she could help. I said she couldn't because the three other people the previous night couldn't. I then asked if someone could call me back within the next 24 hours from managment. She agreed and I gave her my cell phone number and repeated it back to her again just to be sure. I asked for her to tell me my the phone number she had written. She repeated back to me inverting four of the numbers. I then told her again what the phone number was this time with her repeating first the area code (which she got right) then the next three digits (which she screwed up) and the last four digits (which she of course screwed up). After repeating the phone number five times and her still screwing it up, I had enough and hung up. I didn't expet a Rogers person to call me back with the answer to my question, because for cryin' out loud, they weren't "specially trained Advisors" in writing things down.

I picked up the phone, with a little glint in my eye, and dialed ACI's 905-727-1981 phone number. As per usual they picked up the phone within 2 rings. I asked the simple question of the lady who picked up the phone and then told her I had inquired with at least three people at Rogers who obviously didn't know. She admitted she didn't know off hand but that if I waited two minutes she would have the answer from one of technicians. Sure enough, the lady gave me the quick run down. I asked the usual question of "where does Fox television fit in?" She replied on channel 26 which matched where I had it. I said "I will miss ACI's good service that I've come to love and respect." She replied that this phone number would eventually become inactive and their office would be rolled into Rogers' operations. When that number dissapears, it will be a sad day.

After hanging up the phone and going home from work that day. I suggested to Yvonne that perhaps we give up on cable television. She agreed as she only sometimes watches television. I was going to give up on cable television.

Why give up on cable television? Because if a company like Rogers who was born and built their name on cable service can't even tell me if Fox is included or not which forces me to contact one of their former competitors for a straight answer, than cable is simply not worth watching.

Another convincing point that Rogers' service stinks, I haven't told the story yet about how simply activiting my internet service with Rogers turned into an 2 hour ordeal. But that is a subject for another blog entry.

Who knows where life without cable will lead me. Stay tuned to this blog to find out!

VIVAnextblog: The promise of a Great Hope

Recently I've noticed that VIVA has come up with a new website and a blog about it's future intentions and VIVA's take on the different issues affecting it and transit in York Region.

From their blog and website there is great hope that the current VIVA system (sometimes maddening as you can see from several of my blog posts) will become even better.

What's great about the blog is VIVA allows comments from transit observers and other community members on each choice. VIVA even responds to the commenter if there is a comment or question requiring a response or clarification. One example is one commenter complained about the poor design of the Richmond Hill Centre Terminal (which I happen to agree with the commenter) and the response from VIVA was that in the next phase of VIVA that leading architects would be designing the new shelters and Rapidway system (read: Transitway=Ottawa, Rapidway=York Region). As an aside, take a look at the picture of this VIVAnext blog post and explain how you would keep warm in a January snowstorm in a VIVA shelter designed like that (read: the architect who designed this shelter obviously doesn't take transit...or...are they still using the services of the same moron architect who designed the Richmond Hill Centre VIVA station???). So at least this is recognition that VIVAnext is, at least appearance wise, listening to the community about criticisms of the current operations and future operations.

Hopefully this time VIVA will listen to the community about different issues, figure out solutions and present them in a timely fashion to the customers to review and analyse.

Please note I've added the VIVAnext blog to my blogroll in the righthand column.

Great Googly Moogly! Google has created an unecessary uproar

Recently in Canadian media there has been an uproar over Google driving up and down in a non-descript car with cameras on it filming every street in major cities. Sightings of the car have been made in various areas of Toronto including West Hill (as reported by the Toronto Star on Thursday). The major issue that is being brought up is a right to privacy.

The main argument over privacy is Google is taking pictures without permission from those having their picture taken. Privacy advocates believe Google should apply to each person walking up and down the street being filmed by the Google car for permission to be included in the Google Street view project. If the person refuses to have their picture taken, then the Google car cannot film them.

Jennifer Stoddart, the federal Canadian Privacy Commissioner, believes (as per this release on the Privacy Commissioner's website) that the above to be true. Stoddard would like Google, and other similar companies performing the "Street View" concept, should blur any faces or car license plates if permission is obtained. Further, the Privacy Commissioner calls on these companies to provide press releases of the date and times the streets are going to be filmed and where people can ask questions or provide requests that their images be removed.

Google has done a lot of what it has been asked to do. Google blurs the license plates and peoples faces. Google even removes pictures of places that have requested to be removed from the Street View function of Google Maps. But what Google doesn't do is tell the exact dates and times of where they are going to be filming.

On a normal film shoot with cameras, normally this isn't an issue. On a movie set they put up notes stating that this area will be filmed on a certain date and time. At banks the closed circuit cameras are made known via signs and/or television screens near the entrances showing that the area is being filmed for security purposes.

Google's Street view project is different from movie or closed circuit security cameras. Google is filming the entire city of Toronto and some of it's suburbs which means that thousands of kilometres of roads need to be driven and filmed. This presents several issues including how long the filming project will take. The main issue is how long the filming car will need to be on the road to ensure every street is properly filmed and documented. Issues with the car included weather, traffic and other possible issues that slow traffic. Obviously if traffic is moving well during filming then it will take less time to film each city. Conversly if traffic is really bad, it will take longer for the car to finish the filming project. Add to this problem include the tomfoolery that has been presented by arts and other groups who wish to have their little productions filmed by the car. Some of these groups were covered in the Toronto Star articles on April 4th and April 9th. These groups only either slow down or prevent the filming car and/or present unrealistic scenes of the neighbourhood.

People in Canada need to realize that as soon as you walk out your front door you may be filmed. The only place that one has control over where filming is not likely to occur unless self permission is given, is in your own private residence. Cameras are everywhere these days. The media taking pictures for the newspaper can have your image online in minutes without requiring your permission. Your average citizen these days can have web cameras pointing out the window without your knowledge and may also have digital cameras and cell phone cameras. Also with the advent of further technology more cameras or other image taking devices are likely to become available. Thus, one shouldn't be surprised that their picture could be taken at any point after leaving their residences.

Having your picture taken by anyone is now a fact of life. Some refuse to acknowledge this and wish to have their privacy protected. If this is the case, the reality is then don't leave your house for any reason because if you do, you could have your picture taken and, possibly, uploaded to the internet in a matter of minutes, hours, days or years later all without your knowledge.

As for Google, thanks for acknowledging the privacy advocates by removing certain scenes at request and blurring license plates and faces in the project. These are obviously a case of a good company hearing their critics and attempting to resolve an issue. Google, after all, is only filming what can be seen by anyone walking by. If you don't want people or Google going by your place on the street, then please live in a gated community. Otherwise, please don't complain about your privacy being invaded when, clearly, it isn't.