From the Dallas Morning News, June 24, 2007

Google's Street View features street-level pictures of cities pieced together to create a panoramic video map of urban America. All you have to do is use your cursor to take a virtual 360-degree stroll through New York and a handful of other major cities.

Not everyone thinks this is cool, however. Some bloggers call it an invasion of privacy because Google has people drive around a city, constantly taking photos that later are linked to addresses on an online map.

How dare they take pictures of my city and my house without my permission!

What if the photographer catches me standing in my window in my underwearfi

Couldn't this be a roadmap for terrorists, stalkers and burglarsfi

OK, it's possible to imagine a slippery slope of bad outcomes, but that's making too much of Street View. It's more high-tech time waster than high-tech voyeurism and no different from what a pedestrian might see during a real stroll. Believe us, we can think of better ways to pass the time than watching a months-old picture of a street corner in Manhattan or a neighbor's.

It's ironic that Street View has drawn more snarling than webcams, which capture real-time images of public spots across America. Or consider the plethora of far more invasive personal information already available -- legally and illegally -- on the Internet. Those are the real privacy concerns.

So let's accept Street View for what it is -- a procrastinator's delight.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A5.