Sooner, rather than later, you may be able to drop a certain orange-yellow man onto a map of Germany and then look at the scenery as if you were standing on some of the country’s highways and roads. It appears that Google and Germany have finally come to an agreement over Google Street View.
Germany was one of the first nations in which strong objections to Street View were raised. Problems started in the town of Molfsee in September of last year. After that, the German government stepped in and sided with Molfsee, and things ground to an absolute standstill.
Now, the issue’s been resolved thanks to Google showing a willingness to hit the “delete” key.
According to Spiegel Online, “Google will promptly erase any identifiable image of people, property, or cars from all of its raw data upon request. People can file objections before or after the images are published and the German Street View Web site will include a link where objections can be registered. The company has previously removed published images of identifiable individuals but the agreement to erase raw data is a first.”
It might be a “first and only,” too (at least until someone else complains), since only Germany’s received this exception so far.
This is still a significant breakthrough, though, and Street View fans would do well to keep an eye out for blue spaces in Germany that Pegman can visit.
