Google Street View

Posted on June 17, 2009. Filed under: News | Tags: adsense, cars, conflict, europe, france, germany, google, google earth, greece, images, italy, japan, law, legal, new zealand, panoramic pictures, pictures, problem, program, street view, united states |

In a recent update of Google Earth, Google has enabled Street View. Street View is a feature which allows users to view 360 degree panoramic pictures at street level. The pictures can span both horizontally and vertically. So far, Google have taken pictures in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, France, Italy and other parts of Europe.

If you are wondering how the pictures are taken, they drive around in different cars and have a type of camera mounted on the car. I really do not a lot about cameras so I can’t tell you all that much. But they drive through a street so you can view pictures of the same street every 20 or 30 metres in Google Earth. I think it is a great feature; it makes Google Earth much more interesting. I think people had gotten over all the hype a long time ago and this update was necessary to regain their attention.

With Street View, users can get up-close and personal and learn more about the location they are viewing. To avoid any legal problems, Google block the face of all the people in the pictures as well as the license plates on all the cars.

However, now they face some legal conflicts with Germany. Germany has demanded that Google do more regarding the protection of people’s rights. German officials ask that Google makes all people, their cars, and their homes unidentifiable in the raw data that is kept on record by Google. Due to pressure from Germany, Google has agreed to do so.

In Greece, Google faces other problems. The Greek Government has asked Google to stop taking Street View pictures until they are informed on how long Google intends to keep the pictures.

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