Redmond, Washington — Advancing cautiously to avoid the blunders that have plagued Google’s Street View service in Germany, Microsoft announced plans to roll-out a similar service via its popular Bing Maps dubbed as “Streetside” in the country next month.
Following on the heels of Google’s StreetView, which was launched in November 2010 amidst many months of controversies and issues, especially after Google made a hell of their unauthorized data usage and capture.
An image of a Brooklyn from the Bing Maps Streetside service. Microsoft plans to introduce its Streetview competitor in Germany this summer.
The Redmond Vole says it is also trying to avoid the privacy issues and public debates that contributed to delays in the introduction of Google’s pioneering service.
Microsoft’s mapping cars will be sent out in early May…
In an interview with Deutsche Welle, Thomas Baumgärtner, a spokesperson for Microsoft Germany, stated that “We have a program for the next 18 months for about 50 cities in Germany.” He also said that the first cars, which are also being sent out in association with the mapping company Navteq, will begin to survey the streets of the Bavarian cities of Nuremberg, Fürth, Erlangen and Augsburg starting from 9th May.
The Streetside service was first unfurled in December 2009 in the United States and some parts of Canada.
Baumgärtner stressed that Microsoft was taking a cautious approach than Google, which has had to endure nearly constant objections from German politicians and private citizens since the California company first announced plans to bring Street View to Germany.
Surprisingly, around 250,000 German households filed their objections in order to get their homes, apartments and businesses pixelated out of Google’s Street View service before it launched in Germany in November.
Not everyone in Germany wanted their home visible to the world
“I think one important thing is transparency,” Baumgärtner said. “To inform the public, through our standard website, which will go live on Friday [April 8]. Everybody should know minimum four weeks before their region will be driven through with the car.”
According to Google, its Street View cars had been accused of collecting data from open WiFi spots and networks without authorization, and Google later admitted to this wrongdoing. This has caused widespread backlash of any such service systems, and now Bing Map Streetside is getting a very similar welcome in Germany.
But, so far, Microsoft Germany has got all the green signal and is going on collecting the views. Also, similar to how Google Street View automatically blurred faces and vehicle license plates, so too will Bing Maps Streetside will apply. Further, Microsoft will also allow German residents to opt-out of the service, and blur the front of their house or apartment building, as they currently do in the United States and as Google Street View does upon request in Germany.
“The statement of objections is built into the product itself,” Baumgärtner said. “You can visit the site and if you are concerned about [your privacy], you can mark it and enter your e-mail address. We can update that and the normal process shows that the guys in US, they are capable of [implementing the opt-out] within 48 hours.”
Moreover, Baumgärtner added that Microsoft had deliberately “postponed” the launch of its product to have talks with industry and government officials.
But according to German legal scholars quoted as saying that Microsoft’s new product is unlikely to make great waves in the German Internet and data privacy world.
“Microsoft waited until the high emotions as to Google Street View is diminished and could then use the experiences of the Google Street View Project for their purposes,” Thomas Hören, a law professor and privacy expert at the University of Münster, wrote in an e-mail sent to Deutsche Welle.