Ebay Headquarters in San Jose, California, USA (Silicon Valley)
By Carlos Miller
Sometimes I believe that security guards are just bored with their jobs, so they get off on harassing photographers who choose to photograph the buildings they are guarding. Kind of like the guard dog who barks furiously at the mailman day in and day out even though he probably knows that the mailman is not doing anything wrong.
The latest incident comes to us from San Jose where an eBay security guard confronted a photographer taking pictures of eBay headquarters from a public sidewalk.
Photographer Michael Halberstadt explained on Flickr that the guard driving the black SUV with the orange lights ordered him to stop taking photos.
Halberstadt pointed out that he was standing on a public sidewalk and could take all the photos he wanted. They went back and forth a bit before the guard drove off.
Meanwhile, if you Google “ebay san jose” and click on images, you will find various photos of this same building from several different angles.
Popularity: 5% [?]
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Fernandez, as I mentioned in a 
Aw man. They’re never going to let Halberstadt win an auction again.
A good example that .com companies have no desire for constitutional rights. I bet you this would happen if you tried to photograph the google building.
Yet google photographed the front of my house. Sergie and Larry have special rights the rest of us don’t.
Funny example of how people automatically take the actions of a security guard to reflect not just the actions of the employer but other companies that use the same form of delivery for no apparent reason.
That is like saying a Best Buy security guard told me not to take pictures and assuming that Corporate Best Buy and Target both believe that you shouldn’t be taking pictures of their stores.
When the rent-a-cops take the position, spoken or unspoken, that they areenforcing corporate policy, then it falls on corporate HQ. Many corporations will react unfavorably if an employee speaks publicly in a manner that shows the corporation in a bad light, as well. (By that I mean something short of whistle-blowing, such as saying “our products are crappy”, or “top management is a pack of idiots”.)
Granted that security is often farmed out to another company, but policy is still set by the hiring company, and they bear the brunt of the blame, unless the security company can be shown to have a track record of holding such policies. The last would make for an interesting field of study, though.
I think websites like this one are finally educating enough people (mostly photographers), about how to deal with these situations. It used to be that we photographers ran for cover when confronted by police or security while on public property.
Sites like this remind us or teach us what our photographic rights are, and even though corporations are still hassling us, we have enough presence of mind DURING the incidents, as well as a loud enough voice AFTER the incidents to start to bring about change, or at least to challenge the status quo.
how unfortunate that he got harassed while shooting such an american treasure as amazing as the ebay building! just out of curiosity, why the hell would anyone wanna shoot the ebay building? He could have used that digital energy on something more creative like the Friends of Guadalupe River Park & Gardens, just down the road!
Why would anyone want to shoot the Ebay building?
Why not, if it’s there in front of your camera and you aren’t yet down the street at the park?
Hmmm, looks like the have the wrong flag flying out front. Maybe they need to switch to Russian or Chinese?
Hey Carlos…. not all security guards are like that. Just the douche bags.
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