San Francisco — How do you pronounce “street view” in German? It does not really matter now, as Google has voluntarily pulled the plug on Street View in Germany despite its recent court victory that declared the photo mapping project to be within the laws of the country.
Although Google still plans to aggregate street name data in Germany, it will no longer send out its legions of Street View-equipped vehicles to snap photos of the roadways. Nonetheless, what is currently been snapped by Google’s roving cars will stay — numbering around 20 cities’ worth of pictures in all. This means that there would not be any new 360-degree images added to Google’s maps of Germany.
Google has decided to end its controversial photo mapping project in Germany, but photos already posted will remain online.
A Google spokesman told Search Engine Land that the company has shifted its priorities for Street View. “Our business priority is to use our Google cars to collect data such as street names and road signs to improve our basic maps for our users in a similar way that other mapping companies do.”
This is an exceptionally surprising but understandable decision for Google. Surprising, because just last month the Berlin State Supreme Court eventually ruled that it was legal for Google’s Street View to photograph private property from streets, because — a German resident had previously filed complaints that the company’s Street View cars were violating her privacy rights by taking pictures of her, her family, and her residence.
Another Google spokesperson informed The Register that the company has “no plans to launch new imagery on Street View in Germany at this stage” but that the images of the 20 German cities that are already launched will remain accessible.
Google’s relationship with Germany has been restrained even before Street View images were published last November, and became especially cold after Google was caught thieving Wi-Fi data from unsuspecting citizens on its drive-bys.
Hence, even with the court’s wholehearted approval, the Internet giant has decided to shutter the project. Also, last October, Google empowered German residents and businesses to completely opt-out of the service if they so choose — and more than 250,000 households had opted-out of Street View — but got no protection from flying dairy products, as some of those blurry houses were egged by Google fanboys.
With Google walking out of the Street View affair, the Redmond Vole seized the opportunity to introduce its own similar street-based mapping services in the region dubbed as “Streetside” from Bing. The company plans to pull the German countryside into Streetside this summer, starting in May for the cities of Nuremberg, Fürth, Erlangen and Augsburg.
Some “Unfortunate” moments of Google Street View (photos) Courtesy: (Cnet News).