Google Street View India Shut Down After Only One Month

It seems that it's getting harder and harder to maintain and expand Google Street View. Only a month after Google announced that it's rolling out the service in India and that it will start shooting in the country soon, the process has been stopped after the company received a letter from the Commissioner of Police in Bangalore, where the service was to become available first.

Google has confirmed the move, according to Medianama, but there are no details on the actual concerns of the police regarding the Street View service.

Usually, regulators and authorities raise privacy concerns when it comes to Street View, but in this particular case it may have to do with Indian legislation regarding foreign companies and their status in the country.

"We can confirm that we received a letter from the Commissioner of Police regarding Street View. We are currently reviewing it and have stopped our cars until we have a chance to answer any questions or concerns the Police have," a Google spokesperson confirmed the report, but did not add any other details.

Whatever the case, the concerns should be rather important considering that Google took some precautions before it got started. The company said that it had approval from the traffic department of the Bangalore Police, of course, this was probably just to make sure that it can take its cars on the road.

But Google also said that it plans to avoid sensitive locations where photography is forbidden. The company believed it should be in the clear since it was only going to shoot public locations accessible by anyone.

One theory is that the police have raised issues around an Indian law which forbids foreign companies to have too larger stakes in Indian media companies. Of course, it's unclear whether the law would apply to Google, though it could be considered a publisher with all of the content it is already making available.