Saturday, June 15, 2013

Hysteric German Opposition To Google Street View

Long Overdue

This is a blog post I had intended to write some time ago, but did not find time to write it or this subject had drifted away.

Google Stopped Taking Pictures In Germany

“In April 2011, Google decided to stop taking Street View images in Germany” (Wikipedia). Germans can be very parochial and myopic.

What Germans don’t see are the enormous benefits of this project. Just the thought of being able to wander through the most famous streets, places etc. of the world at any time from my computer at home or even from my smartphone is mind boggling.

I believe, most of the concerns raised against Google Street View can be easily ameliorated by current and available software technology, e.g. automatically graying out faces, license plates etc. Are Luddites only a past phenomenon?

Personal Experience

Not long ago I wanted to identify the multi-dwelling house in which my maternal Grandmother lived in the city of Frankfurt am Main. I had some faint memory of what it looked like and where it was located.


Since I live in the USA I would have to travel to Germany to physically walk through the street to refresh my memory. Thus I thought, I use Google Streetview from the comfort of my home in the US and view the pictures of this short and narrow street not far from downtown. However, as I was viewing the images of the multi-story buildings lining this rather typical residential neighborhood, I noticed that a large number of dwellings were not visible due to redaction. Thus, my effort was practically thwarted by the residents of this street. Thank you very much!

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