There are distinctions which make offline and online activities inexact equivalents, both in expectation and and effect. If I may pontificate..

For example, a conversation in a coffee shop about my house between 2 or 3 neighbors is not the same as a Q&A conversation online. For starters, the coffee shop conversation is verbal and somewhat intimate between the 2 or 3 folks, while the Q&A online is written and is overheard by 2-3 thousand, or more, souls. In addition, that offline conversation is transient, like words writ on water, fading into oblivion, whilst the Q&A is web perpetual and Google everlasting.

And because of its vast reach and permanence, any online misinformation has a much greater impact, making it difficult to correct. That which makes the web powerful renders a comparison with any coffee klatch kibbitzing meaningless.

Now, to the point of privacy and house views. Yes, indeed, the outside of my house is public but the expectation is that it is public to folks who walk or drive by and not the untold thousands on the net.
Is there a legal difference? Maybe not under privacy principles but..

Finally, and to relieve the weary reader, a distinction which may effect legality is that Zillow or any other real estate website which displays my home WITHOUT my knowledge or consent is making a profit from it. That may be the shocker, like scalding coffee spilt on the lap.

If the neighborhood busybody is walking down the sidewalk and happens to notice activities that might be embarrassing to the homeowners, current privacy laws can't stop them from telling the rest of the neighbors about it. However services like Google Street View expand privacy loss by many orders of magnitude and create the potential for far more serious consequences than disapproval or giggles from the other neighbors. Personally embarrassing photographs from these services have been widely republished on the Internet. Even though Google will take those pictures off their own site on request, the same views remain active elsewhere today and can be viewed by potential employers, business colleagues, relatives and friends. It is important to have a public debate about whether the additional loss of personal privacy from such tools merits some restriction of the tool owners' current unrestricted right to take and post such photographs online without any advance knowledge or permission of the homeowners.

The second issue is public safety and security. The Pentagon has prohibited Google from publishing its street view content of U.S. military bases, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has reportedly requested that Google delay the release of its street views of the Washington, D.C. area because of national security concerns.

International terrorists are extremely unlikely to use tools like Google street view to plan attacks on homeowners. However professional domestic criminals, many of them potentially violent, are certain to take advantage of these tools ease of use, efficiency, and detection avoidance properties in planning their criminal activities. Many criminals are probably already using them now.

Street View and similarly compiled ground level views of residential neighborhoods enable anyone with internet access to drive undetected, virtually and very efficiently, through residential neighborhoods. Users of these tools can stop along the way to observe multiple high resolution photographs from multiple angles, the features of every home, lot, and any of the homeowners and/or their personal property that might be in the photograph.

A professional car thief can use Google Street View to scout miles of residential neighborhoods in a few minutes, looking in driveways enroute for the brands and models of cars most in demand in the stolen car trade. Professional burglars or kidnappers can use these tools to identify homes in upscale neighborhoods that are well screened from the street and neighboring homes by landscaping or terrain. They can all use these tools to help plan the best routes in and out of the neighborhood for when they return at night. Using these tools, criminals run no risk that alert Neighborhood Watch program members might write down the license plate numbers of unfamiliar vehicles driving slowly through their neighborhood and report them to the police.

Existing satellite views are ineffective for these purposes. Overstory tree
coverage (the crown, or top part of trees) and terrain views do not reveal whether potential entrances to homes are blocked from ground level views or otherwise pose threats to detection. Satellite photos are also very grainy when magnified and can't be used to identify the brand and model of car in someone's driveway. Other Internet ground level photograph sources (county records, real estate ads, MLS's etc.), are spotty in coverage and/or would be so cumbersome to use for such targeting that few if any criminals would bother to use them for that purpose.

Current laws require companies to get advance opt-in permission from consumers for many business purposes. Because of the risks to safety, security, and privacy, it would seem reasonable to require companies that post ground level photographs of homes on the Internet to also get advance permission from American homeowners before doing so in the future.

American Homeowners Grassroots Alliance

You wrote:
"Louis –

I hate to be the one to break this to you but the people who drive past your home can see it."

Are we talking at cross purposes or are you telling me that people that drive by my house can see that transparency is overrated and in many respects disingenuous?

What am I missing?

Thank you for informing me that my street is public property and that my thinking is not rational.

I am not a privacy nut. In fact, the first thing I did when I moved into my house was remove the trees and shrubs that separated the home from the street.

This is about medium and context. Of course people can walk or drive by my home. As Rob Hahn points out, drive-by's of this sort are important in the offline search process. But think about this: Would you be a little weirded out if someone stood on the (public) sidewalk at 10:00 p.m. at night an stared at your home for 30 minutes? Have you ever had someone drive down your street and had the feeling they were casing the place?

The combination of exposure and lack of control (as you point out you are legally free to do whatever you like with exterior images of my home) is what can be problematic online. Doug's comment about the license people take when no one is looking is right on.

So you are right on the law and the "rationality".

But that misses the point.

Brian

Have cake…want to eat it too.

I hate to be the one to break this to you but the people who drive past your home can see it.