14 DAY TRIAL // Since the search giant Google added the revolutionary Street View function for its web-based mapping tool, numerous users started to raise privacy concerns, sustaining that the new functions show private information about them. The examples that were published on the Internet were very relevant, showing a lot of US residents appearing on the maps. Moreover, some users added that they were able to view detailed photos from their houses on Google Maps, although they didn't offer the authorization for this.
Today, Philipp Schindler, Head of Google Northern Europe, had an interview with German Spiegel Online precisely to defend the web-based mapping solution and especially the recently introduced feature. According to Philipp Lensen from Google Blogoscoped, the Google employee sustained that the feature shows nothing more than the elements available for any resident of the country because they are captured from the street where almost everything - except for the private aspects - are viewable.
"The Street View feature includes only those photos taken from public grounds. The imagery is not different from anything each of us can photograph themselves - the kinds of things you'd see when you walk the streets. Added to that, we spoke to a variety of US organizations to get a feeling if there's potential concerns, and if so, which these are. In the cases where we found out it's necessary to introduce special privacy protections, we reacted prior to launch. For instance, you won't find images of accommodations for the homeless, or abortion clinics," the Google employee said according to Google Blogoscoped.
Moreover, the search giant debuted a new feature for Google Maps that allows users to report a certain image appearing in the web-based service and remove it for privacy violation. This function is extremely important for most of the users as the parent company Google was placed on the last position in a top concerning the privacy offered by the Internet firms.