Do you think moderately wealthy people are that concerned about the cars? Most will have more than sufficient insurance to cover them! It's personal and privacy issues: it's them and their family. Not everyone goes to a car gathering to be photographed with their car and have their identity and license plate posted all over the internet. I can not conceive how anyone can find this acceptable.Originally Posted by tubby
Not so hypothetical situation. Photos of an exotic or collectible car is posted with the license plate visible, maybe the owner is visible in it as well. An ex-business partner gone sour, stalker, or kidnapper runs the plate on any of the numerous websites that will give the owners name and address for a fee. Other than California anyone can get information from the DMV as well simply by filling out a form, or you can file a hit-and-run on a particular license plate and for a few bucks have a police report that will most likely contain the "suspects" information. The easiest is online though. Now that someone has the owners information they plan a kidnapping of the owners wife or child, or worse. Why do you think reality shows blur license plates? People have been murdered using DMV information, specifically a young actress in California in 1989. Television producers do not want that liability, and neither do photographers. Imagine the name of the specific website photos were posted on coming up in trial for the death of someone? Who wants to live with that? Is it a likely situation? No. Has it happened before? Yes.
What's stops someone from just going to the meet after they see pictures of it and write down or take photos of the plates themselves? Nothing. What stops someone from staking out a high-end establishment and stalking someone? Nothing. But why provide the entire world someone else's information without their knowledge or approval?
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