German Town Attempting to Block Google Street View
Google's Street View program is currently hitting the streets of Germany, snapping photos of the streets, as well as the homes, businesses, parks, and other landmarks that reside on them, utilizing cameras mounted on the roofs of vehicles.
The town of Molfsee (pop. 5,000) in the northwestern German state of Schleswig-Holstein is hoping to block the search giant from taking photos of its streets and houses to use in its "Street View" program - a service which offers 360-degree, street level images through the Google Maps search engine.
Reinhold Harwart, the town councilman, said "We are not going to let this happen. You can see everything in those photos! That is opening house and home to criminals!"
Harwart isn't the only one in Germany concerned about Google Street View. Officials at both the state and federal levels also have issues with the project.
Germany's Federal Commissioner for Data Protection, Peter Schaar, told the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper that he had major misgivings about Google's plans. The state's deputy officer in charge of privacy protect, Marit Hansen, also said:
"We find the project extremely alarming. It gathers personal data and puts it on the Internet. That will not do."
Ever since Street View was first introduced in San Francisco in May 2007, the program has elicited similar responses around the globe. However, it has since spread to dozens of new cities around the world, with new ones constantly being added.
But as far as Google is concerned, the fears are unfounded. Kay Oberbeck, Google's spokeswoman for North and Central Europe said:
"You can't really see anything more than a person walking down the street would. But, whereas that person can look over the hedge, our cameras can't."
Oberbeck also added that the program automatically blurs out the faces of people and license plate numbers caught in the images.
Google has been out taking photographs in Germany now for several months, where it is not illegal to do so. However, the town of Molfsee is planning to require Google to get a permit, citing laws related to traffic and commercial activities in public spaces. "And when they ask for a permit, we will say no," said Harwart.
Google, however, doesn't seem to be concerned with the threat. Arguing that the streets are public property, Oberbeck says, "We don't need permits, Street View is not a tool designed for criminals."
Nevertheless, Molfsee and a few other German towns are looking at taking legal action to protect themselves from Google's cameras.
Comments
Google couldn't care less about this squat little town
The people of Molfsee, Germany will be happy to know that Google is not interested in their little, piddly town (probably because it is too small) according to the Google source quoted in this article:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/09/30/europe/EU-Germany-Google-View.php. You can't discount this, because in the U.S. there is not much small town coverage - what there is exists because those towns are in close proximity to more populous metropolitan areas. There is some coverage of Street View near small towns from freeways which show us very little of any individual residence. For city folk, it's another story; however, at least in the U.S., the resolution is so crappy I can't see what anyone, big town or small, has to fear.
Really, this is just a lot of nonsense. Criminals can and will continue to drive and walk down streets to find homes against which to commit crimes. Street View is hardly competition for actually viewing homes up close and personal. And if you don't want your house showing up in Street View and you're not willing to get over yourself and your house which holds interest for very few of us, then by all means, ask Google to remove the image.
Hang on!
Dear someone who loves Street View. It is not fair to call a place you have never seen "piddly" - just be a bit respectful. I am fond of street view too, but as long as the new technologies are evolving much too fast for this world's population and secondly, as long as such ideas are born in a country that behaves irresponsible by ignoring the impact on people's privacy (or - shown most recently - the impact on the world's financial stability) countries in Europe will continue to protect their law. Let me put it this way (unrespectfully): Please spend a minute to reflect that in this part of the world the smallest towns have probably more to show than any place in the US since the history is much older. By the way, Google today confirmed to forego the filming across the whole northern area of Germany in which 2 million people live (as many as in Hamburg city!).
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