Google Street View Troubles in Germany

Google's controversial Street View, a service which allows for an "on the street" photographic map view, has officially launched in Germany. In creating the service, Google has manually taken 360 degree photographs of streets across the world. However, the internet giant was confronted with a significant amount of problems while developing its service for Germans.

The German government has been unusually strict with Google amongst privacy concerns from many of its residents. As a result, Google gave Germans a month to request their faces or even their entire homes be blurred before the launch of the service. Out of over 8 million homes photographed, nearly a quarter million requested their households be blurred.

Google has encountered several problems through tout its expansion across Europe, most notably in the Czech Republic where Street View has been banned completely from expanding outside of Prague.