There is a wonderful irony in Google – the business model built on the wave of consumer empowerment – suffering from an empowered consumer protest. Street View has attracted a great deal of comment – the best article I’ve read was written by Frank Skinner – and much complaint. Now we have the story of how a bunch of villagers in Buckinghamshire successfully blockaded the Google camera car.
Google has enjoyed a charmed life, being celebrated by Jeff Jarvis, among others, as the perfect example of a collaborative, new age business. Unfortunately, the bigger, more powerful and ubiquitous it gets, the greater the chances that it will start alienating certain communities. It may strive to live by the mantra of ’do no evil’, but the Buckinghamshire villagers will not be the last group to put this philosophy to the test.