250,000 German Residents Opt Out of Google Street View

With Google getting ready to launch Street View in Germany, a quarter million Germans surprised the company by asking that images of their houses get blocked.

The Google application has gone live in 20 other countries already, but Germany is the only country to receive the blur-out option. The nation greatly values individual privacy. It even has its own Consumer Protection Minister, who heartily advocates regulation of Google's mapping activities.

Google is doing its part to minimize the incident: "Out of a total of 8,458,084 households, we received 244,237 opt-outs, which equals 2.89 percent of households," Andreas Tuerk, Google's product manager in Germany, blogged recently.

When you look at it that way, it's not too bad. But might Germany's opt-out option catch on in other countries? If so, would you opt out? 

‘Pedestrian Remover’ May Change the Face of Google Street View

Image Credit: University of California - San Diego

Computer scientists at the University of California – San Diego have built a computer vision system that automatically removes individual pedestrians from Google Street View images.

The system works by cutting out the image of a person and replacing it with an approximation of the background behind him or her. The new background pixels mimic those from the photos immediately before and after the image in question.

Although Google Street View already blurs people’s faces and images of license plates, this new computer vision system could take this type of digital privacy one big step further. Plus, it would probably help the world avoid another “dead girl” panic.

German Citizens Express Privacy Concerns Over Google's Street View

When Google announced earlier this month that it will begin street-view mapping in 20 German cities, citizens' concern about privacy grew. 

To quell concerns, Google has introduced an online tool that allows Germans to request the removal of images of their homes.