Referring to a new legal document, Google considers the Street View application for legally correct in Germany too. “Legally the service cannot be stopped anymore,” Google Germany’s legal advisor Arnd Haller stated at a press conference in Berlin on Tuesday. He felt optimistic that the street view linked to Google Maps could launch this year. No exact release date has yet been fixed, as Google is still busy with implementing the communicated privacy protections.
In the past months, the search engine company sounded strong headwind. Germany’s Federal Minister for Consumer Protection Ilse Aigner talked about millions of burglaries into people’s privacy by Street View and called for massive protests against adding houses to the map data. Google has already received several thousand contradictions, Haller confirmed. However, he considers that a “relatively small number” compared to the number of houses added.
After a “flood of complaints from privacy advocates”, Google Germany offers the possibility to file a complaint against displaying houses and non-pixelated faces or car license plates even before they are published. Additionally, the raw data of these photos are deleted as well.
According to information by the German newspaper Hannoversche Allgemeine, Google is going to visit the IT trade fair CeBIT for the first time this year. Google’s decision to participate was taken very short-term. Three days ago, Google spokesman Stefan Keuchel had declared: “CeBIT is (sadly) not a topic this year.” Now, his colleague Kay Overbeck confirmed: “We have booked 100 m² in the Webciety hall to demonstrate Streetview. Not more and not less. Ergo, we’re participating.”