Google halts Street View in Germany

PCWorld.

Although Google still plans to aggregate street name data in Germany, it will no longer send out its legions of Street View-equipped vehicles to snap photos of the roadways.

Google business priorities have shifted from Street View pictures to just the basics “in a similar way that other mapping companies do,” a spokesperson told Search Engine Land.

Another Google spokesperson told The Register the company has “no plans to launch new imagery on Street View in Germany at this stage” but that the images of the 20 German cities that are already launched will remain accessible.

This development comes a month after Google won a court victory when the Berlin State Supreme Court ruled it legal for the company to take street-level photographs, reports ZDNet.

Google's privacy-related scuffles with Germany concerning its online mapping service have been notably heated - and documented in the media - ever since German authorities in May 2010 requested an audit of information collected by Street View cars.

This led to Google admitting it had gathered personal data such as e-mail, passwords, login names and phone numbers, from unsecured WiFi networks. This revelation sparked several privacy investigations and lawsuits worldwide.

With Google walking out of the Street View affair, the Redmond Vole seized the opportunity to introduce its own similar street-based mapping services in the region dubbed 'Streetside' from Microsoft's Bing, writes eBrandz.

The company plans to pull the German countryside into Streetside, starting in May for the cities of Nuremberg, F"urth, Erlangen and Augsburg.