According to an English-language article from Ynetnews, soldiers and vehicles inside a “secret base” are clearly visible on Street View, which just launched in Israel a couple weeks ago.

Journalist and new media consultant Yossi Dorfman revealed in his blog that a secret Tel Aviv-area base has been fully exposed by Google’s new service. The images allow users to see the guard post at the entrance to the base, several soldiers inside it, and vehicles parked in the base with their license plates clearly visible.

The article goes on to quote a “veteran officer” who saw the images and called it a “first-rate screwup” on the IDF’s part to allow the images to show up online. There’s nothing in the Ynetnews article that places any blame on Google.

In fact, in the Hebrew-language version of the article, an IDF spokesperson is quoted at the end as saying all images on Street View have been reviewed and approved for display, and that there are no military security-related reasons to hide the images in question.

For its part, a Google spokesperson gave us this statement:

“We always strive to cooperate with the relevant authorities in countries in which Street View is operated. We had very constructive discussions with the Israeli security authorities and are pleased that they have approved our plans to bring Street View to Israel. The imagery featured on Street View is no different from what any person can readily see walking down the street or looking at other pictures online. Imagery of this kind is available in a wide variety of formats for cities all around the world.”

Shown above is a screenshot of the Wailing Wall (also called the Western Wall) in Jerusalem, one of the city’s most sacred sites.

Plans to bring Street View to Israel have been the subject of great discussion — and some controversy — for more than a year. In early 2011, Israeli government officials met with Google and concluded that allowing Street View images online would be good for tourism and the country’s image.

Others disagreed, saying it would help terrorists find new targets. Palestinian militants had previously admitted to using Google Earth to plan rocket strikes inside Israel.

But after months of discussion, and a public poll in which 70 percent of respondents supported Street View imagery, the Israeli government gave Google the go-ahead last August, but with four conditions:

1. Israel will be able to initiate any civil legal challenges against Google inside Israel, even though the Street View data will be hosted outside the country.

2. Google won’t challenge the authority of Israel’s Law, Information and Technology Authority to initiate criminal or administrative challenges if Google violates state law.

3. Google will give the public a way to request additional blurring of images (beyond Google’s normal level of blurring) after the images are published online.

4. Google must use online and offline channels to inform the public about the Street View service, the right to ask for additional blurring and its planned driving routes. Google’s Street View cars must also be clearly marked so the public can identify them.

According to this blog post (in Dutch), Street View images are available in Haifa, Tel Aviv, Merhavia, Kfar Kama, Nahsholim and Beersheba.

We could do the same again right now, because Google has tried to top itself with another round of April Fool’s Day jokes that pretty well span the globe of Google’s international properties. Below is a recap of Google’s (and a few others) pranks, and we’ll do our best to update this as the day goes along.

Google Racing: Self-Driving Cars Hit NASCAR

The main joke at the moment is Google’s “announcement” of a partnership with NASCAR called Google Racing, which brings Google’s self-driving cars to NASCAR race tracks “by the middle of next season.”

There’s also a faux news video about Google Racing (with no embed code – the cruelest joke of all!) starring Jeff Gordon and a couple other NASCAR drivers, not to mention Sergey Brin pretending to be Google’s first NASCAR driver … or whatever you call the person who doesn’t actually drive the car.

And if you go to Google.com, the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button has been renamed “I’m Steering Lucky” and there’s a link to the Google Racing microsite.

Google Maps In 8-Bit For NES

Google’s pranks began early this morning with a blog post announcing that Google Japan has created an 8-bit version of Google Maps for the original Nintendo Entertainment System.

You can relive all your favorite 1980s graphics by clicking the “Quest” button in the upper right corner on maps.google.com.

Google Street Roo

In Australia, where Google Street View cars and trikes can’t get to remote areas of the continent, Google says it’ll use kangaroos with mini-cameras mounted on their noggins to photograph the Australian outback. They’re calling it Google Street Roo. Hopefully the 1,000-plus kangaroos won’t mistakenly collect any personal data via wifi while they’re hopping across Australia.

Google China: Underwater Search

I said it was worldwide, right? Well, even Google China has gotten in the act with an underwater search gag. It’s more like a Google doodle than a prank, though.

Google’s Really Advanced Search

Speaking of search, this one will probably go over well with our audience. Google’s really advanced search page has some pretty funny options, like this:

You can also narrow your results based on what font the page uses, what textured background the page has and which “embarrassing grammatical faux pas” is found on the page. If you’re into SEO, you’ll like this one. You may even find yourself wishing that the page actually worked.

Google Search: Weather Control

Another search gag: Google Weather Control. Type in any weather-related search (like “seattle weather”) and you can make the weather anything you want it to be. You can turn Seattle into Phoenix, if you’d like.

Google AdWords: Click-to-Teleport

The AdWords team has a new extension called Click-to-Teleport that lets “potential customers to instantly teleport to your business location directly from a search ad.”

The YouTube Collection

YouTube’s annual April Fool’s Day prank is the YouTube Collection — all of YouTube on DVD. Once you order, 175 trucks will deliver the DVDs right to your door. Oh, just watch the video. Make your checks payable to “Matt McGee” if you’re planning to order.

Play Music In Google Analytics

I’m not seeing this (yet?) in my Google Analytics account, but this Aussie blog says there’s a little music icon on the Visitors Overview page in Google Analytics. You can play a piano or sitar while enjoying (or bemoaning) your website’s performance.

Google Chrome Multitask Mode

The Google Chrome team thinks one mouse/hand isn’t enough for web browsing, so they’ve launched Multitask Mode — two mice/hands at once.

Gmail Tap

Gmail Tap converts your keyboard from 26 letters to just two — dots and dashes, just like Morse code.

Google Fiber Bar

Forget that fiber optic network thing. Google Fiber is actually just a fiber-filled candy bar that helps you be up to 100 times more productive than ever before.

That’s Not All…

There are other search-related April Fool’s Day gags, perhaps my favorite of which is Google Nigeria, which jokingly asks you to input your bank account number so you can “search for inheritance.”

Don’t be alarmed: the search box just runs a normal Google search (not that you’d actually put your bank account number in there, anyway, right?) and, while this is NOT an official Google gag, it also doesn’t appear to be run by some Nigerian prince. (It’s a production from 85by55.com.)

There’s also TheGoogleButton.com, which lets you make a fake Google search result page with whatever website (and title/snippet) you want in the No. 1 spot.

Flickr has announced that all photos can now be seen in the 1980s style “Atkinson dither,” accessible via a small button in the lower right part of any photo page.

And last, and probably not least, the folks at Reddit announced “reddit timeline,” which brings a touch of Facebook to the proceedings and is pretty funny — especially when you click on “1970s” and get the animated rainbow header, along with “news” about Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and the war in Vietnam.

And now that April Fool’s Day has actually begun … time to sign-off, at least until the next prank comes along.

Postscript:

As expected, we have a few more pranks to add and they all come from Google. Here you go!

GoRo: Google Mobile

Google Mobile has introduced a program called GoRo — the name is a play on the actual “Go Mo” campaign — that encouraged business owners to learn how to optimize their websites for rotary phones. Why? Because “technology is cyclical.”

Google Analytics: Interplanetary Reporting

Google Analytics jokingly wrote about a sneak preview of “interplanetary reports” that let website owners “understand visitor activities from neighboring stars and planets.”

Interplanetary reports will be rolled out in 2030, Google says, “when we anticipate local space travel becomes widespread.” Heh. Watch them be right about that part.

Google AdWords: Planetary Targeting

The AdWords folks didn’t stop just with Click-to-Teleport (see above). Oh no, there’s more. If you login to your AdWords account and edit location settings on one of your campaigns, you’ll see a joke about being able to do planetary targeting.

And yes, if you follow through and type “Mars,” for examplem, it shows up as one of the targeting options. There’s even a fake support page explaining how it all “works.”

At least I think it’s fake. Who can tell anymore?

He described how he was outside of his new home and noticed that the Google Maps Street View car was approaching. He had to act fast and think up his “Google Maps Pose.” He then demonstrated the pose to the audience.

Fillion jokes, “I think this is important, it is something everybody should think about.” “If a Google Maps car is coming down the street, what am I going to do?” he said.

Jimmy Kimmel never saw a Google Maps car before and asked what they look like. Nathon Fillion described it as a car with “giant robot eyes.”

Here is the snippet from the show:

Related Stories:

• Google Maps Street Views May Have Caught A Criminal
• Friday Fun: A Street View Car Made Of LEGOs … And It Works!
• WATCH! Google Street View Camera Falls Off Car
• Google Street View Car Kills Bambi, Removes Pictures Afterward
• Dead Girl On Google Street View? No, Just A Game
• License, Insurance, Registration & Google ID: Cop Tickets Google StreetView Car
• Cool Sights In Google Street View
• Schmidt’s “Just Move” Joke About Google Street View & How It Went Missing

As Czech Position reports, Google has agreed to several conditions put forth by the Czech Office for Personal Data Protection:

• Google will take photos closer to ground level to avoid photographing personal property over fences/walls.
• Google will give Czech citizens a method to demand that their property be removed from Street View.
• Google will blur license plates/registration information on vehicles.
• Google will pre-announce when it’s planning to photograph in Czech towns and cities.

The concessions are similar to ones that Google has made in other countries.

Google began Street View operations in the Czech Republic back in the spring of 2009, and put images online in the fall. But by December of that year, government officials shut down the service over privacy concerns.

The opt-out requires a change in the name of the wireless network (the SSID) to include _nomap at the end of the name. In other words, if your wireless network is named “McGeehome,” you’d need to rename that to “McGeehome_nomap.” (And frankly, I’d prefer you use your own last name while you’re at it.)

Google says this method “provides the right balance of simplicity as well as protection against abuse. Specifically, this approach helps protect against others opting out your access point without your permission.” The company is also encouraging other location providers to adopt and respect the _nomap signal in the future.

In its help pages, Google says its system will pick up the new SSID name and process the opt-out the next time your router sends location information to Google’s servers through a reliable channel.

Google’s been in trouble around the world since admitting that its Street View vehicles collected personal information through unencrypted WiFi networks. Google has repeatedly said the data collection was an accident.

This _nomap opt-out method was something that several data protection agencies in Europe requested Google provide to safeguard against similar problems in the future. Google promised an opt-out method in September.

(Stock image via Shutterstock. Used with permission.)

A recent survey of 50 convicted burglars by UK security firm Friedland Response and reported by the UK’s Sky News argues that Google and social media tools are being used extensively to target people.

Nearly 80 percent of the 50 ex-burglars surveyed strongly believed that Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare were being used by current criminals, and nearly 75 percent stated that they thought Google Street View was also involved in theft planning.

Just over 50 percent said that including your whereabouts in social media status updates was “a mistake” and helpful to burglars.

Other findings:

• Home burglaries yield £500 ($782) of stolen goods or valuables on average
• The average burglary related insurance claim is £1200 ($1,877)
• Nearly 80 percent of the burglars said a simple home alarm system would deter them from targeting the home

There are some caveats that must be mentioned:

• The survey sample was very small: 50 former burglars
• The ex-burglars stated their beliefs and perceptions of what’s going on now; they weren’t discussing how they committed their own crimes

The advice given in response to the findings is: be aware that others may be using your tweets and check-ins to decide whether to “burgle” your home. However there are a range of common-sense methods to deter burglaries, such as: don’t hide keys near doorways, don’t leave doors and windows unlocked or open and don’t put valuable items in places where they can be seen clearly from outside the home.

In a blog post yesterday, Google says the opt-out will be available to people around the world.

Even though the wireless access point signals we use in our location services don’t identify people, we think we can go further in protecting people’s privacy. At the request of several European data protection authorities, we are building an opt-out service that will allow an access point owner to opt out from Google’s location services. Once opted out, our services will not use that access point to determine users’ locations.

Google has been in hot water for about 18 months now, since the first revelation that the company’s Street View vehicles had been collecting personal information over unencrypted WiFi networks. Google has insisted that the data was collected accidentally, but that hasn’t stopped some governments — particularly in Europe — from demanding increased privacy measures from Google. Many countries have determined that Google broke local privacy laws, but only one — France — has so far issued a financial penalty.

Google says the opt-out service will be available later this fall.

This is the first product to emerge from Google’s controversial acquisition of travel software company ITA, which closed in April and included concessions and guarantees to existing ITA customers such as Kayak, Microsoft, Orbitz, Hotwire and TripAdvisor. The past five months have been spent on integration of the ITA team and technology in Boston.

This Flight Search beta product breaks no new ground for online travel but points the way toward something more ambitious for Google. The company hinted at that more ambitious product vision in the blog post that announced the acquisition in July 2010:

[W]e think there is room for more competition and greater innovation. Google has already come up with new ways to organize hard-to-find information like images, newspaper archives, scholarly papers, books and geographic data. Once we’ve completed our acquisition of ITA, we’ll work on creating new flight search tools that will make it easier for you to search for flights, compare flight options and prices and get you quickly to a site where you can buy your ticket.

Presented in a way that is similar to Google’s current recipe-search tools and UI, a query such as “flights from sf to nyc” will trigger the appearance of a “flights” filter in the left column. That in turn leads to a more “vertical” experience that enables users to search for flights in a variety of different ways.

Below is a screen showing the new flight results page. Fliters on the left allow for refinement of the search by airline, loyalty program, number of stops and so on (not unlike what already exists at many competing travel sites). Users can manipulate dates, flight duration and pricing. They can aslso search for available flights based on destination and budget, a la Travel Muse.

Once an outbound and return flight are selected — there are no one-way or multi-city capabilities right now — users are taken to an airline website to book. The content presented in Flight Search results is all organic. However, as the image below indicates, the booking link is or could be an ad. According to Google this is the only advertising in Flight Search.

Google said it’s still experimenting with the model. It’s not entirely clear what would happen if the selected airline were not an advertiser. Are only advertiser flights being included in the data presented? I assume not. However when most travel sites such as Kayak or Orbitz deliver a user to an airline or hotel site there’s lead-gen fee or bounty paid. And Google may have struck agreements with all the major carriers accordingly.

As the screens above indicate a map figures prominently in the UI. However Google isn’t using Street View or integrating hotel search or its local business database (including reviews) into the product. That’s the opportunity in one sense: to fully leverage Google’s database and existing products to create totally new travel planning tools and user experiences. This is the “promise” of the ITA acquisition.

However Google famously refuses to discuss future plans. Indeed, Google won’t say anything beyond the fact that Google Flight Search is a first step and that it will improve over time. ITA’s “matrix search” may hold some clues to the future of Google Flight and Travel search products:

• Geo Search – search by airport code, city, or nearby airport selector
• Event Finder – plan your trip with a listing of events and things to do
• Interactive Calendar – explore date ranges and find the lowest fares
• Real-time Filters – focus on flights that suit your preferences
• Color-coded Time Bars – compare flights at a glance

Along those lines, one can easily imagine many creative and well integrated user experiences that take advantage of Google’s existing assets. Bing Visual Search for Travel is an example of a creative use of search, content and images for travel planning.

Right now Google Flight Search is a useful, if limited, tool. But absent some of the novel and creative innovations I allude to above, it doesn’t really put pressure on any of the established travel search brands or OTAs. Over time, that could change of course.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Ministry of Justice’s decision comes after months of discussion with Google about how to allow Street View in the country while still protecting concerns related to individual privacy and the bigger issue of violence/terrorism. The government offered an online poll about Street View, and 70% of respondents voted in favor of allowing Street View to launch in Israel.

As Globes.co.il reports, Google has agreed to four conditions:

1. Israel will be able to initiate any civil legal challenges against Google inside Israel, even though the Street View data will be hosted outside the country.

2. Google won’t challenge the authority of Israel’s Law, Information and Technology Authority to initiate criminal or administrative challenges if Google violates state law.

3. Google will give the public a way to request additional blurring of images (beyond Google’s normal level of blurring) after the images are published online.

4. Google must use online and offline channels to inform the public about the Street View service, the right to ask for additional blurring and its planned driving routes. Google’s Street View cars must also be clearly marked so the public can identify them.

What’s not mentioned in any of the articles I’ve seen so far is whether Google has been restricted from driving/photographing certain sensitive areas. When we wrote about Street View’s likely arrival in Israel back in March, government officials were talking about refusing to allow Street View to photograph “security installations” and other similar locations.

Mordechai Kedar, a retired Lt. Col. who served 25 years in Israeli intelligence, has been critical of the country’s interest in bringing Street View there. He tells the AP that military locations should be barred from Street View: “God forbid a country should need to reveal its secret facilities just because Google invented something. The lives of people are more important, and the security of countries is more important.”

Also not mentioned is where (and when) Street View will begin driving in Israel. In our first article, we mentioned that some reports had suggested only three cities would be included at first: Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa.

Google has typically been reluctant to give specifics about its Street View plans in other countries, and that’s also true where Israel is concerned. Contacted this morning with the above questions, a Google spokesperson provided this statement:

“We’re pleased that the DPA has approved the operation of the Street View service, and hope to update on our plans soon.”

Postscript, August 24: According to an article on Ynetnews.com, Google will begin driving in Israel in a month-and-a-half, and the first city will be Jerusalem. This has not been confirmed by Google.