Approximately 250,000 Germans Opt Out Of Street View
With the German debut of Google’s Street View service drawing nearer, the California-based technologies company reported on Thursday that less than 3% of households in the European country have asked that their homes not be visible on the mapping program.
Street View, which is currently available for users in nearly two dozen countries worldwide, is "close to launching" in the 20 biggest cities in Germany, national product manager Andreas Tuerk wrote in an October 21 post on Google’s European Public Policy Blog.
German authorities had previously pressured Google officials to allow homeowners to opt out of the service by having their homes removed or blurred. The deadline for opting out was October 15, and according to Tuerk, 244,237 out of a possible 8,458,084 households asked to be excluded from Street View photographs.
However, Tuerk warned that some locations will be visible at launch, despite the opt-out request.
"We’ve worked very hard to keep the numbers as low as possible but in any system like this there will be mistakes," he said. "For instance, some people asked us to blur their house, but didn’t give us the precise location."
"In such cases the household can still ask us to blur the image using the ‘report a problem’ tool on Street View once imagery is published–and we’ll do it as fast as we can," Tuerk added. "The same is true of faces and car license plates that our automatic blurring technology may have missed."
Street View was been the target of much criticism in recent months. In the spring, Google acknowledged that the data collecting technology used by its Street View vehicles had also intercepted private information transmitted over Wi-Fi networks.
Spanish authorities are launching their own investigation into the company’s data collection and storage methods, and according to AP Writer Melissa Eddy, Google could face a fine of $3.33 million if they are found guilty of violating data protection laws.
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