--- title: Google Street View Mocked For Blurring the Face of a Cow description: Google Street View takes privacy policy to next level after image of cow in Cambridge, UK, surfaces appearing to have its features blurred. canonical: https://time.com/4496660/google-street-view-mocked-for-blurring-the-face-of-a-cow/ author: Suyin Haynes article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-09-16T11:47:49.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:36:38.827Z og:title: Google Street View Mocked For Blurring the Face of a Cow og:description: Google Street View takes privacy policy to next level after image of cow in Cambridge, UK, surfaces appearing to have its features blurred. og:url: https://time.com/4496660/google-street-view-mocked-for-blurring-the-face-of-a-cow/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt80807625d6e785fc/6988a6632dce014df69eaaf5/google-street-view.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: BRAZIL-GOOGLE-STREET VIEW og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Google Street View Mocked For Blurring the Face of a Cow twitter:description: Google Street View takes privacy policy to next level after image of cow in Cambridge, UK, surfaces appearing to have its features blurred. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt80807625d6e785fc/6988a6632dce014df69eaaf5/google-street-view.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Google Street View Mocked For Blurring the Face of a Cow > Sponsored content. 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The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. by [Suyin Haynes](https://time.com/author/suyin-haynes/) ## Suyin Haynes Sep 16, 2016 11:47 AM UTC  The Google street view car in the streets of Brasilia, Brazil, on Sept. 6, 2011. The Google street view car in the streets of Brasilia, Brazil, on Sept. 6, 2011. Pedro Ladeira—AFP/Getty Images by [Suyin Haynes](https://time.com/author/suyin-haynes/) ## Suyin Haynes Sep 16, 2016 11:47 AM UTC Google Street View seems to have taken its privacy policy to the next level after an image of a cow with its features blurred emerged. The image was taken last summer in Cambridge, England, and was discovered by The Guardian’s David Shariatmadari, [who highlighted it in a tweet](https://mobile.twitter.com/D%5FShariatmadari/status/775488250223947776) that has been retweeted over 9,000 times. Google Street View launched in 2007 to provide photographic views of streets and countryside all over the world. Google automatically blurs faces and car licence plates to protect privacy but doesn’t normally protect the anonymity of animals. This case has attracted plenty of attention and jokes and terrible puns on social media. A spokesperson for Google told the BBC: “We thought you were pulling the udder one when we herd the moos, but it’s clear that our automatic face-blurring technology has been a little overzealous. Of course, we don’t begrudge this cow milking its five minutes of fame.” > [](https://twitter.com/ProfTimBale/status/775615175273672705) > [](https://twitter.com/Powys%5Fpower%5Fgat/status/775767784433254400) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4496660/google-street-view-mocked-for-blurring-the-face-of-a-cow/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4496660/google-street-view-mocked-for-blurring-the-face-of-a-cow/"},"headline":"Google Street View Mocked For Blurring the Face of a Cow","datePublished":"2016-09-16T11:47:49.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:36:38.827Z","description":"Cow captured on Street View refuses to moo-ve out of the picture","url":"https://time.com/4496660/google-street-view-mocked-for-blurring-the-face-of-a-cow/","keywords":["Newsfeed","uk","animal"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt80807625d6e785fc/6988a6632dce014df69eaaf5/google-street-view.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Suyin Haynes","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/suyin-haynes/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt80807625d6e785fc/6988a6632dce014df69eaaf5/google-street-view.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"BRAZIL-GOOGLE-STREET VIEW","caption":"The Google street view car in the streets of Brasilia, Brazil, on Sept. 6, 2011.","creditText":"Pedro Ladeira—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4496660/google-street-view-mocked-for-blurring-the-face-of-a-cow/","name":"Google Street View Mocked For Blurring the Face of a Cow"}}]}] ```