14 DAY TRIAL // Rumors concerning a potential expansion of Google Street View in Europe have been circulating on the web for some time now, but the Mountain View-based company hasn't made it clear yet if it considers such an expansion or not. However, Google Street View cars are occasionally spotted in Europe, which obviously supports the idea that Google may be interested in bringing the continent into high-resolution. According to Network World, Google is now gathering photos of Paris, France, as some Opel Astras were spotted in the city, being equipped with all kinds of high-tech cameras.
Moreover, a Dell notebook could be seen in the cars and the driver and the passenger even admitted they were working for the super search giant Google, the same publication adds.
Just like usual, the arrival of Google Maps Street View in a new country raises privacy concerns because every single nation has its own laws, which may or may not allow Street View to display photos with its residents. In the United States, Street View has already led to a few privacy lawsuits after people appearing in the high-resolution photos captured by Google asked the search company to remove them from the pics. For this purpose, Google added a special report image function that allows any of the people appearing in the photos to request the removal or the censorship.
Since it wants to expand Street View to France, Google may also get in trouble due to the local laws that, according to Network World, give residents the right to avoid appearing on such services similar to Google Maps unless they give their authorization. However, it's interesting to see the way the Mountain View-based company tries to deal with this because, once it started the European expansion, it will encounter similar problems in numerous countries on the continent.