Google abandons Street View in Germany

[Emil]

Google has stopped sending out its Street View cars in Germany. Although a German court recently ruled that photography in streets is perfectly legal, and thus Google is allowed to continue updating its Street View service, the company has decided to stop, according to Search Engine Land.

"Our business priority is to use our Google cars to collect data such as street names and road signs to improve our basic maps for our users in a similar way that other mapping companies do," a Google spokesperson said in a statement. The search giant doesn't plan to take down its Street View photos for the 20 German cities it has already photographed, but it won't update those photos nor will it expand the service to more cities.

Google has not explained why its stance has changed. Street View saw a huge privacy opposition in Germany almost immediately after Google announced it was coming to the European country. After lengthy negotiations with German officials, Google eventually agreed to let German residents opt-out of having their houses and buildings appear online, and nearly 250,000 Germans chose to do just that. The result is many blurred buildings on Street View in Germany.

Nevertheless, we still find this recent decision a very surprising move from Google as the company has always strived to expand its various services to countries worldwide. Even when the company faces lawsuits and privacy complaints, it typically fights them and occasionally adjusts its product accordingly. We can't remember the last time Mountain View decided to stop maintaining one of its services as well. Then again, this decision may not be final.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/43232-google-abandons-street-view-in-germany.html

 

[Guest]

wtf? stupid germans in this case

 

[ihaveaname]

Wanting privacy is a perfectly legitimate reason. If people don't want their street number (if not more) broadcast to the world, they have a right to stop this. How can you call them stupid just because they don't want you to see their houses? What's it to you?

 

[Guest]

their houses are anyway in google earth, or "my hose" for example is on norc.ro (in its street view).
if i can take pictures with every house and put it on the net, why google doesn`t?

 

[Archean]

If you take picture of some street as a stranger, I am sure someone will complain. Google is trying to stick its nose in every aspect of our lives which isn't appreciable IMO. Hence, I fully believe that Germans took the right stance, I wouldn't mind sticking something interesting up Google's *censored* if they sent their street view crews in my neighborhood.

 

[Guest]

we have chip passaports but dont want this?
and its legal but people say not? above the law? its non-sense.
and what is the explication? not because...? i dont see it.
germans recently have "greens" in politics who dont like few accidents on autobahn. wake up, germans.

 

[Scshadow]

How exactly are Germans opting out? Sounds like if they've got to gather permission from everyone, that'd be a pain in the *** and not worth it. Whats extremely sad is that street view is an incredible feature. Being able to see exactly the place you are going to go to see exactly what it looks like is an incredible step up from "turn left and arrive at destination in .2 miles." My last vacation I explored the whole street where our rental was without being there. There was no guessing if we'd like the location.

Knowing exactly what your destination looks like means you don't drive like a slow dumb*** trying to finding it. It could be considered a safety tool. Less trouble locating something, means you can pay more attention to the road.

Archean said:
If you take picture of some street as a stranger, I am sure someone will complain. Google is trying to stick its nose in every aspect of our lives which isn't appreciable IMO. Hence, I fully believe that Germans took the right stance, I wouldn't mind sticking something interesting up Google's *censored* if they sent their street view crews in my neighborhood.

So taking a picture is sticking a nose in every aspect of our lives? Its a picture, from a public location. Any average joe can walk his dog down the street and see what your house looks like. Its illogical that just because its immortalized on the internet, that it makes any difference.

 

[Lokalaskurar]

This is ridiculous. I still hold my claim that demanding Google to wipe you off their map-service is just like demanding the map-making company to remove your house from the map entirely.

There is *not* much of a difference. The greatest difference would be that a map does not provide the colour of the house's paintwork.

Other than that, Google Streetview is just another (cool) map-service.

 

[Burty117]

I have to admit, Street view has been very useful when I've been trying to locate places in the past, It makes road layouts and actual building recognition much easier. I really hope this decision is only for Germany and not for the UK.

 

[Punkid]

lol, google got pissed and dumped germany

 

[Archean]

So taking a picture is sticking a nose in every aspect of our lives? Its a picture, from a public location. Any average joe can walk his dog down the street and see what your house looks like. Its illogical that just because its immortalized on the internet, that it makes any difference.

Have you ever considered how much information Google (and other sources for that matter) collect about their users without ever letting them know about it?

Secondly, if your average jo doesn't belong to the local community and is perceived as 'suspicious' in anyway he/she will get noticed by the way.

 

[Guest]

I'm from Germany and I don't understand it either. Street View, although I rarely use it (because not many cities here have it, hint hint) is a great tool to recognize where you're going to be once you arrive at your destination. I used it once to locate a bar in a bustling main street of Berlin, which had hundreds of bars and Google Maps wasn't sure where exactly the thing would be on the street. Seeing it on a photograph was much easier in the end.

They have gone ahead and blurred out people's faces on these photos. If they did that with every city, there wouldn't be a problem, would there? I'd be much more concerned about people being recognized than buildings - the whole point of Street View, as I just explained, *is* to recognize buildings...

I guess considering how fast Berlin is developing, in a few years we will see a lot of buildings in SV that aren't there anymore... and the feature becomes almost useless.

 

[Benny26]

Dang...How am i ever going to find the oktoberfest now?

 

[stewi0001]

street view has saved my butt several times on finding a place. Two of the times I remember were for job interviews (one of which resulted in my current job.) But the other one I would have ended up on a bridge wondering where my right turn went to. FYI I did not use the get directions I was eyeballing the area since I knew part of it.

 

[Guest]

Like anything, it can be used for good or evil. Think about history for a moment, think if Hitler had this type of technology. OK, it's the present day and things are different but what if you had lived through the type of an era or your family did, you may have a different view of personal privacy.

 

[Guest]

In the end the only losers is Germany, good job! Had to complain now there fed up lol ~Xclusiveitalian(didnt want to log in)

 

[Guest]

didn't know there was that much tinfoil in Germany for all the tinfoil hats.

 

[gwailo247]

Guest said:
Like anything, it can be used for good or evil. Think about history for a moment, think if Hitler had this type of technology. OK, it's the present day and things are different but what if you had lived through the type of an era or your family did, you may have a different view of personal privacy.

I think the East German gov't was the one that affected most Germans in terms of this situation. Half the country spied on the other half, and it was quite a shock when those spied upon realized that their friends and family members were the ones informing on them. A lot of those issues are still unresolved, two decades later.

But if they think that Street View is intrusive, why are they allowing Facebook in Germany? Having a picture of your house is not ok, but someone having access to your complete circle of friends and family, along with pictures, a long history of what you've done and where, and a list of future plans, is somehow ok?

 

[Guest]

probably they have private fb and they test the fb friends )
but what they do with google earth? it`s picture from above, god like.))