ZAIO – creating a photo DB of YOUR house, and selling that info to others
So after running some errands midday today, I drove home to pickup something. And on the street was a photographer, taking pictures of the homes nearby. As the photographer approaches my house I asked the lady, “what’s this all about?” She identified herself as a Zaio Zone photographer, who is taking pictures of all homes in the area, for the purpose of “emergency services, real estate, appraisal assessments, insurance and lending institutions”.
BTW, Zaio stands for “Zone Appraisal and Imaging Operations”.
And I’m thinking to myself, yeah right, I can think of a couple of places the photo of my house might end up… Yes, you got it, Google is one of those places. LOL. I won’t be surprised if that becomes the case… Combine this with all the personal information on the web, and you have someones’ complete profile, home photo included…
I don’t like that shit… Stay away from my house Zaio!
So I asked the lady, “what about privacy?” And “I don’t want my home be part of that DB?” She politely replied that “people can contact Zaio to get the photo removed, and that she would skip my house”. I said, “Thank You!”.
If you visit Zaio Corporation, you will see that the company has a massive operation, with around 19.4 millions photos already taken! Wow.
Welcome to the new world, the era of physical and digital worlds convergence…
ceo
The detailed hi-res photos on Microsoft’s local.live.com are already there, and if you’ve tied your name to your address anywhere else on the web, someone could drive right up to your home anyway, so I don’t see this as removing any remaining privacy regarding a picture of your house.
Google’s already doing their ’street view’ out here in our metro area (Silicon Valley), so if these guys want to do the same thing, and sell it to the city for police and fire to use, or the bank to make a loan, it seems like just more of the same…
Yes… it is more of the same. I still wanted to rant about it
ceo
i wouldn’t be too concerned about it. zaio is mantaining a database for appraisal purposes. they’re not doing anything illegal with the images.
do you own your house?
if you get a credit line, home equity loan, second mortgage, sell the house, etc… lends require photos to be taken, they always have. usually an appraiser takes the picture and puts it on his/her report. all that zaio is doing is updating a database that is “supposed” to cut down costs when your bank needs an appraisal done.
google, microsoft, that’s a different story.
but how about this, if you want a real eye opener, how about going to your county property appraiser website and typing in your home address? it will display your name, your address, your title transfer scan, a plat, aerial view (most are now hi-res), and in many cases, the front of your house.
at least the zaio photographer has no idea about who you are. they are just photographing the houses and an appraiser who manages the zone makes sure that the information is current (for example, public records often has misleading information or houses that burned down, etc).
so no, nobody is violating your privacy, unless you have 100% cash to purchase a home and don’t require a loan.