Online ogling of ordinary folks will get old soon

Ten years or so from now, no doubt, we all will have seen each other in our underwear.

Or with food in our teeth. Or with our socks mismatched.

We'll all have heard recordings of each other screaming at our kids. We'll know all about everyone's drunken-driving arrests and we'll be able to check out photos of each other's car crashes on TMZ.com.

And there will be nose-picking for those interested. All on the Web.

Give up. Privacy is so over.

My resignation is brought on by Google's new Street View mapping feature. Surely you've taken it for a spin by now?

Who hasn't?

Those groovy guys at Google drove the streets of the Bay Area (and several other cities) snapping 360-degree photos of our neighborhoods.

They linked the photos to Google's map feature, so that you can see what you would see as you drive.

The project captured buildings and landmarks and unsuspecting people doing what people do when they think no one is looking.

The new feature is addictive. And disorienting. Time is frozen at whatever point the Google crew happened by.

When you move from one block to the next, you sometimes move from one season to the next. Leafy trees and flowers on one block. Naked trees and overcast skies on the next.

It can be a school day in one place and a bustling weekend morning a few streets away.

Theoretically, you could spot the same person in two different places on Street View, and I'm sure some Web site is collecting examples as we speak.

The whiz-bang technology, launched recently, has everyone in a tizzy. Some find themselves in a state of tizziness because the feature is so cool.

Others are in a state of tizziness because if you look closely enough you can see a woman's cat sitting in her apartment window.

And you can see other things. Like the man walking out of the Va-Va-Voom strip club in San Francisco, or whatever club it was. That one made the 11 o'clock news.

Street View is a tool, as much of the Internet is. A way to look at where you're going and where you've been.

But every now and then, no matter where you're headed, a sight on the service can stop you. Like the view at Santa Clara and Market streets in San Jose.

There, as SiliconValley.com pointed out, is Cornelius Van Der Vies and his dog Boo-Boo.

Van Der Vies, a beloved homeless man downtown, died in April after he was assaulted. Hundreds turned out for his funeral. Now his image lives on.

It's all become something of a digital parlor game — finding intriguing images on Street View. The blogosphere hasn't lit up like this since Lindsay Lohan entered rehab.

Web sites are calling for the best, funniest, weirdest, etc., Street View images. Wired's Web site has asked readers to vote on their favorites.

Last Monday, the leading vote-getter was a picture of women in bikinis on the Stanford campus. (Same as it was when The New York Times checked last week.)

The second favorite was of a woman exercising in her apartment. The third was of a woman inadvertently flashing her thong while getting into a car. The fourth was of different women at Stanford in bikinis.

Maybe Street View is a guy thing.

But here's the deal: This is going to get old.

Although I feel for those who feel violated, most of us just aren't that interesting. Once you've seen one neighbor picking up the paper in his robe, you've seen them all.

My advice to Street View's accidental celebrities? Just ignore us.

We'll go away soon enough.

Mike Cassidy is a columnist with the San Jose Mercury News.