ABSTRACT

My neighbor recently looked up a Google Street View image of his tattoo parlor in Amsterdam. He noticed that his bicycle was parked in front of his shop, so he gathered that the specially equipped cars that made the panoramic photographs were traversing the city on one of his working days. Becoming intrigued he returned to the map and looked up the school of his children, whom he always picks up after school on his non-working days. On the Google Street View image a crowd of parents were gathering outside the school building. So he figured that the picture must have been shot at the end of the school day. His bicycle was nowhere to be seen and therefore his presumption that the cars drove through the city on one of his working days must have been right. He then looked up his home address on the map and saw that his car was not parked in front of the building. Had his wife gone somewhere that day? On the square in front of the house he noticed a huge billboard with posters for the European elections. So now he knew that the Google cars must have been driving around Amsterdam around June 2009.