Don't Let Weirdos Use Google To Burn Your House Down

Hello Everyone and welcome to another edition of Privacy Tips, the sister podcast for Stupid Sexy Privacy.
I’m your host, BJ Mendelson.
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Now, my friends, like with the Annual Credit Report tip, I'm going to share another tip you might already know.
Or might have at least thought about, before getting busy and moving on to more pressing things.
Like whether or not you left your phone in the car.
I can't speak for other generations.
But my generation — The Millennials — have been ground down to a nub by busy work.
Especially when it comes to managing your privacy and safety.
That's because the tech companies have pushed all the work — and the responsibility if we don't do that work — onto us.
So if someone says, "You should make sure your home is blurred on Google Maps" you may respond with either:
"LOL. My generation can't afford a home. So this advice doesn't apply to me."
"Yeah yeah yeah. I'll get to it. After I finish doing the 7,234 other things in front of me."
Decision fatigue is real, and wee're going to talk a lot about it.
But let me back up to that first point real quick ...
Home ownership is out of reach for most, if not all, of my generation and the ones behind us.
So, it doesn't matter who owns the home you're living in.
What matters is that you may want to get it blurred on Google Maps.
Here's How
Put your address into Google Maps on your laptop.
On the bottom right, you'll see the Street View Square. Click on that.
You'll see a Black Box on the screen with your home address. Click on the 3 dots on that Black Box
Then select "Report A Problem." This will take you to a new screen.
You'll see a picture of your home on that new screen.
Now, you want to make sure your home is within the Red Box.
Under the picture of your home, it'll say "Request Blurring." Make sure you then select the words "My Home"
Google will then make you click a box stating you own the home,
Lastly, there's an info box that'll appear. All you need to do is enter is "I'm requesting that my home be blurred." If there's a couple of homes in the picture, you can give them additional information to make sure Google only blurs your home.
Now all you have to do is put in a good email address to be reached at. Like say, your cleverly disguised Proton Account using an @ Duck email. Complete the CAPTCHA and submit the form.
You'll get an email from Google saying they've acknowledge receipt of your report.
But then it'll take about a month for Google to get back to you on the blurring request.
Sounds easy right, but there’s a big catch.
Once you blur your home, you can't undo it.
So before we go, I want to give you two reasons not to blur your home :
If you're planning on selling your home, this process will blur your home on popular websites that list homes for sale.
If you blur your home, but your neighbors don't. Or if you're the only blurred house in the neighborhood ... Then you're going to stand out. That may defeat the purpose of this exercise.
It's sort of like, if you go to a protest, do you want to bring a completely locked down, second phone?
Maybe.
But if you do, and you're the only one with a locked down phone, it also makes you stand out.
One solution is that you blur your neighbor's house too. But they may get kind of pissed if you do that without their permission.
So, if that's the route you want to take, it may be worth talking to your neighbors first.
Personally, I think the best way to protect yourself — and your community — from fascists and weirdos is if we all blur out our homes.
You may disagree, and that's ok. But this is a discussion worth having with your neighbors.
Remember: Defending our privacy and safety is a collective act.
Not an individual one.
In an upcoming episode, I'll also talk about how to remove your home from Bing and Apple Maps too.

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"Today’s episode of Privacy Tips was recorded in Hollywood, California and is sponsored by DuckDuckGo.
It was written, produced, and hosted by me. B.J. Mendelson.
Before we go, I want to give a shout out to the production team at Stupid Sexy Privacy. That is Andrew VanVoorhis, Rosie Tran, and Amanda King.
And, of course, our friends at DuckDuckGo.
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