I like Clifford's approach of "If you are curious and asking, I reply openly and honestly with my real name and a card I'm handing you so you may forthrightly know who I am and what I'm doing."
In the very, very limited number of times I have also had what I can only characterize as "mild inquisitiveness" towards "what are you doing with what looks like spying (no) / data collection (yes)? This seldom if every gets rude or hostile, I ask them if they have a smart-phone (as they see me punching a mobile device in my hand, holding a GPS, scribbling notes on paper, or all three). If they say "yes" (billions of us do), I ask, "Do you ever use maps on it or be a little amazed at how because it knows where you are (if you tell it that's OK) and then search for the nearest dry-cleaners is or how to most quickly walk to the drugstore it draws a nice set of lines on a map that is pretty, up to date, and takes you right there easily? Well, as a volunteer in an open data mapping project called OpenStreetMap, I'm helping you continue to do that in the present and future by updating things around here." I invariably get a smile and a hearty "thank you!" and it's all over in about twenty seconds. Good will begets same. The "scraping of menus" and "we deliver Ming's Chinese" (though Ming knows nothing about delivery of his food) are strange trends for me to see, but I suppose we shouldn't be too surprised. Whether this is legal or ethical or has anything to do with maps (OSM or otherwise), I'll refrain from saying anything about here and now. Except that as more and more telescopes are pointed at everybody everywhere, we shouldn't lament the disappearance of what we once quaintly thought of as "privacy." Regards, SteveA California _______________________________________________ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
