It is estimated that London’s network of 250 underground stations and 18,000 bus stops is used by over 1 billion commuters every year.

Now, when a commuters and tourists wants to get from one point to another, they can plan their journey by visiting Google Maps and then clicking ‘Get Directions’ in the left-hand panel.

Selecting the train icon shows public transport directions. Users can enter a departure location and a destination as they would for driving and walking directions. These can be either in the form of street addresses or names of popular places, businesses or restaurants. Once that is done, clicking the ‘Get directions’ button will bring the desired results.

Google Maps with public transport directions for London

Users will receive instructions about several different options they can use for the trip. On Google Maps for Mobile, the suggestions will be based on the user’s current location by default.

While Underground and bus routes are integrated perfectly into the system, the recently extended London overground train network is not incorporated into Google Maps. As a result, some journeys that would take just 15 minutes on the train are shown as a 45-minute route via the Underground network.

Kentish Town to City Thameslink requires 30 additional minutes on Google Maps

Those using Android devices will get directions with Transit Navigation (Beta) in Google Maps. This new feature, which was launched earlier this month, will also show alerts when it’s time to alight or transfer from one bus or overground train to another.

Public transport directions are available for all Underground, bus, tram and Docklands Light Railway (DLR) lines. More services will be included as soon as information is available.

London has one of the best public transport systems in the world. Locals rely on the Transport For London official governmetn site when planning their journey. However, tourists often aren’t aware of this service. It will now be even easier for commuters, especially for tourists to use this public transport as detailed directions will be available to them at a click.

Over the months this feature has become very popular and is now getting over 1 million ratings per month. Part of this popularity is due to the fact that the ratings and reviews of friends definitely carry more weight than the reviews given by strangers or professionals.

Google has also added an app on the iPhone and on Android to integrate the feature with Google Maps and Google.com. This feature is currently available in 47 different languages. Users can also share their ratings and reviews on twitter.

Thanks to this growing popularity, Google Hotpot is now being rolled into Google Places and will no longer be known as Google Hotpot. This change is being made to help users to find and review the over 50 million places which are already on Google Places.

Google will also be adding more features to Google Places, in due course of time in order to increase and improve the interactiveness of the site.

Google already has automated software that blurs out faces, but this is only about 98% to 99% effective, while the court has stressed on 100% efficiency.

This means that Google will have to do the needful manually, which will not only require a lot of time and manpower, but will also substantially increase the cost of operations.

The court has deemed that this is not a real problem. It has said, “All privacy breaches could be avoided, but this would entail additional costs for the defendants, as they would have to make images (even more) unrecognisable in part manually. The additional costs would obviously not, however, jeopardise the commercial survival of the defendants.”

Google Street View Zurich showing van parked outside erotic club

In addition to blurring faces and license plates and ensuring complete anonymity near sensitive areas such as schools, women’s shelters and prisons Google has also been instructed by the court to prevent private places such as courtyards and walled gardens from showing up on Street View.

Moreover, it is also now mandatory to announce where and when Street View capture is scheduled.

Google has one month to decide whether or not they wish to appeal against this ruling to a higher court.

A spokesperson for the search engine has said, “We are very disappointed because Street View has proved to be very useful to millions of people as well as businesses and tourist organizations. More than one in four of the Swiss population has used it since the service launched in Switzerland. We’ll now take some time to consider what this means for Street View in Switzerland and our appeal options.”

There is, of course, a very real possibility that Google may decide to stop this service in Switzerland rather than having to waste resources on blurring out individual images manually.

So far, when a user was in a particular city or town, that location was automatically visible to contacts as a dot on a map. But now, with the use of Google Maps 5.1 for Android, users can actually specify their exact location, when they are in a restaurant, theatre or any other place of interest.

Of course, users retain the right to decide whether or not to share their location. Users can choose to keep their location confidential, share it with friends or even make it public.

To remind the user to use this facility, Google Maps will show a notification to check in, whenever the user enters a place of interest. The user can also opt for an automatic check in facility for certain selected places. When a person checks in at a given location frequently, that person is given a designation such as ‘regular’, ‘VIP’ or ‘Guru’, depending on the frequency of visits, which is similar to Foursquare’s system of awarding “mayorship”.

Latitude also automatically checks users out of the location once they leave the place, which is not something Foursquare does. The check in facility also provides turn-by-turn directions to the place through the Google Maps Navigation and allows users to leave reviews about the place. Google will shortly add a feature that will provide a complete history of the check-ins through an optional History tab.

Considering that latitude is used by 10 million people every month, this new feature should gain popularity very soon.

This new check-in feature is very similar to what other sites such as Gowalla, Foursquare, Loopt, Facebook Places, Scvngr and Whrrl provide. However, the additional features of notifications and automatic checkout should help Google get more users. The competitor websites will have to be on their toes if they wish to survive against Google’s onslaught.

When Google first announced, in August, that Street View would be made available in Germany, a lot of people objected to it as it would infringe on their privacy.

Google, therefore, gave users the option to have images of their homes blurred. To do so, home-owners had to register to opt out of Street View by the 15th of September 2010. Those who wished to opt out after that date, would be able to do so by using the Report a Problem tool.

Approximately 3% or 244,237 German households chose to opt out of Street View.

However, some of these people who live in the town of Essen have had to face an unexpected problem.

Houses that have opted out of Google Street View in Essen, Germany

Local media outlets report that the homes of people who have opted out of Street View were pelted by eggs. Additionally, a notice saying “Google’s cool” was pinned on their doors.

Expectedly, Google has refused to accept any responsibility for the act. A spokesperson said, “We respect people’s right to remove their house from Street View and by no means consider this to be acceptable behaviour.”

It can only be assumed that the act was carried out by some fans of Google or vandals who were just looking for a chance to create some trouble.

Germany is not the only place where Street View has had to face resistance. A lawsuit is pending in Switzerland, due to which the publication of photographs on Google Maps has been suspended. In Greece too, Street View operations have been put on hold for now.

Hotpot allows users to give personalised reviews and recommendations for various venues listed on Google Places. The users’ friends can then view the reviews and also share their own opinions about those Places.

Places reviewed on Google Hotpot

Based on the ratings and reviews that a user and his friends give, Hotpot will recommend other places, which they expect the user to be interested in.

Google Hotpot has not yet been integrated with other Google services such as Gmail, Buzz or the social friends list, so users not only have to create a separate profile for themselves, they also have to re-enter their list of friends. Moreover, each friend has to be added separately, as there is no option to enter all the friends together in one go. Each friend also needs to reconfirm that he or she is willing to be on the friend list of that user.

The reviews that users or their friends add on Hotpot are accessible to the public. However, the user has the option to use a different name or photo on this profile, so as to remain anonymous.

Hotpot can be accessed by clicking on the ratings in any Google Places listing. Once users finalise their profile and friend list, they can put up reviews about several places in their locality. The list of places in that area is automatically provided by Hotpot. After a user has rated 5 places from the list, a new list is automatically shown. The more places a user reviews, the easier it is for Hotpot to suggest other places that the user may like.

Hotpot is also integrated with other Google searches, so when users click on Places they will also see reviews from other sites like Yelp and Urbanspoon.

The Hotpot service can be accessed on mobile handsets through Google Mobile Apps. It is currently available only on Android phones. This mobile service is especially useful for someone who is in unfamiliar territory, as they can see reviews from friends who have been there and select a place that their friends have recommended.

Google’s recent drive to spruce up their local business service seems to be finally delivering on their predictions of search evolving into a more personalised, localised and social experience.

A comparison between Google and Bing shows that the Bing Map is more accurate:

Mistake on Google Maps showing incorrect Nicaraguan border
Image courtesy of Search Engine Land

A military commander from Nicaragua, who was following Google Maps, moved his troops along the San Juan Lake, which lies between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. His troops then removed the flag of Costa Rica and hoisted the flag of Nicaragua in its place.

It so happens that the region concerned actually lies in Costa Rica, and the Nicaraguans have “inadvertently” invaded that country. Costa Rica, has since complained about this, and asked international mediators to intervene.

A Costa Rican newspaper, La Nacion, has pointed out that the Nicaraguan Commander is misusing the erroneous Google Map to justify his moves. This, in spite of the fact, that both countries use a different official map.

Google Maps was definitely just being used as an excuse. The Guardian reports that Nicaragua has insisted on keeping troops in the disputed territory even after admitting that they had acted on incorrect information. The island of Calero, which is the centre of this conflict has been disputed by the two nations for over 200 years.

While Google admits that there are errors in some international borders on Google maps, they claim that they have made corrections on over 60 borders recently. Google also blamed this particular error on inaccurate information supplied by the U.S. government. They agree that the border is erroneous by about 2.7 km. They are now working on correcting the map.

Google had sent out cars equipped with Wi-Fi connectivity to collect data for Street View Maps. They also ended up collecting email addresses, passwords and other personal data from unsuspecting residents whose Wi-Fi networks were unsecured and lay on on the Street View cars’ routes.

The Commissioner, Christopher Graham has asked the company to sign an undertaking to ensure against data protection breaches in the future. Google will also be required to delete all the illegal data at the earliest. The commision has, however, not imposed any fine this time, saying instead, that if the error is repeated, Google would face much more severe legal action.

In the U.S.A., the case was also recently cleared, letting Google get away with a little more than a telling off. Google still faces similar charges in Italy, France Spain, Germany and Canada. The French and German courts might not be as forgiving as the English and Americans.

Google’s Global Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer has said, “We are profoundly sorry for mistakenly collecting payload data in the UK from unencrypted wireless networks.”

The Information Commissioner’s Office had conducted a similar enquiry in July, but it was conducted by non-technical members who had given a clean chit to Google at that time. The ICO is also facing criticism for this unprofessional conduct.

Facebook must be extremely jealous of Google’s good fortune. The popular social network seems to be forever getting negative press about privacy issues even though they have never committed as grave an error as Google. And yet, at present Google seems to be getting away without even a slap on the wrist!

It now comes to light, that the problem still continues to exist. This was revealed by the advocacy group, Consumer Watchdog. John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog told the BBC that “We think the Google Wi-Spy effort is one of the biggest wire tapping scandals in US history.”

Consumer Watchdog retraced the same route as Street View cars and found that the homes of several people including some high profile politicians were having open home networks, through which a lot of important and private information could leak out.

The Consumer Watchdog, in turn has come under fire from the Computer and Communication Industry Association (CCIA) for conducting an experiment which itself could be dangerous.

However the Consumer Watchdog wants Mr. Eric Schmidt the CEO of Google to be made to testify under oath about this issue.

Google has issued a statement saying, “as we’ve said before, it was a mistake for us to include code in our software that collected payload data, but we believe we did nothing illegal. We’re continuing to work with the relevant authorities to answer their questions and concerns”.

While such statements sound good and may help Google to buy some time, they certainly need to act fast to rectify this problem even if it eventually means discontinuing the feature entirely, before the data ‘unwittingly’ collected lands into the wrong hands and creates major problems.

After all, mapping areas and roads is okay, but “tapping” into what people are doing is not, and we all expect Google to behave responsibly.

Google has admitted to German and Irish authorities that they have been “mistakenly” collecting information transmitted over unencrypted wi-fi networks over the last three years.

The error was discovered when the concerned authorities in Germany asked for details of data collected by Google’s Street View cars, for Google Maps.

Google has admitted that they were “mistakenly collecting samples of payload data from open networks”. The data thus collected could include emails, photos, websites visited by individuals and businesses surfing on unencrypted Wi-Fi networks when the Street View cars passed by them.

A number of individuals, communities and even entire townships already oppose the Street View service, as they believe that photographs taken by the Street View cars are an invasion of privacy and could be easily misused.

The fact that Google has now been caught snooping private wireless networks will give privacy watchdogs more ammunition to fight their case.

In 2006-2007 a Google engineer wrote a piece of code on an experimental Wi-Fi project, which sampled publicly broadcast data of all categories. The data collected was supposed to be limited to SSID and MAC addresses broadcasted over non-password-protected networks.

It may be little consolation to know that most of the data collected is probably quite unintelligible.

Google suspended the use of Street View cars after the issue was brought to their notice. The company has also asked for a third party to study the case and find out exactly what caused the error and what kind of data was collected.

In what may be considered to be an apology, Google’s senior Vice President of Engineering and Research, Alan Eustace said, “Maintaining people’s trust is crucial to everything we do, and in this case we fell short.”

Google’s problems, though, are definitely not over. Soon after the German government disclosed the issue, the Irish Data Protection Authority ordered Google to delete all payload data collected in Ireland, and they won’t be the last. In fact, Google is sure to have a lot of explaining to do and may even have to face legal action.

The new Place Pages for Mobile will provide relevant information about places of interest in a given neighbourhood, to people on the go. Apart from giving the exact location of a shop, hotel, restaurant, tourist spot or any other business, the service will also provide a lot of detailed information about the place, including opening times, users reviews, ratings and images of the place.

As with the regular Place Pages, the mobile Place Pages can be accessed by clicking on the relevant location pinpointed on Google Maps.

Instead of including a mini map within the place pages, Google requires users to instead have to click on a ‘map’ button, which isn’t really smart for a mobile interface where fewer clicks are always better.

At present, the new Place Pages for Mobile are only available on Android-powered handsets and the iPhone and iPod in the U.S.A.

Interested users can view the service through a google.com search on their smartphones. They then have to click on the relevant local business listing on the search results page.

Google Public Data

The Trendalyzer software allows users to access various statistics in an interactive and animated format, which is definitely much more interesting than just having to read dull details from a table. This technology is also used in motion chart gadgets, such as the Google Visualization API and Google Docs.

Google Public Data Charting Minimum Wages In Europe

Google has now launched the Public Data Explorer, which will allow users to analyse statistical data on a wide variety of subjects ranging fromunemployment rates to the fertility rates in various countries. The data is provided by reliable authorities such as the World Bank, EuroStat, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statisitics and U.S. Census Bureau.

The tool was generally expected to supplement data already available on Google Maps. While it isn’t currently available directly on Google Maps, it does make it easy and interesting to not only visualise and explore the data on a map or a graph but also to share it by embedding it or posting a direct URL to a particular data set.

The animated charts will be updated automatically so users will always receive the latest data available at the time. Users can also click on the play button to visualise the changes in data over a period of time.

According to a post on Search Engine Land, a nut and candy retailer in New York reported that some people from Google approached them to take detailed pictures of the entire store.

The pictures were taken at intervals of 6 feet in all directions. They also took photos of the products available in the store.

These pictures will supposedly be used on the new feature on Google Maps called Store Views. As the name suggests, this will enable Google Street Views users to virtually look into the stores on that street, just as if they had walked into it in real life.

When users see a store in a street view, they can click on its door and enter it and then walk through it, to actually see its set up and the products available in it.

While this feature could be useful in larger stores selling lots of products, like all good things, it could be misused. It will make it very easy for individuals or groups with the criminal intentions to misuse this feature.

In fact, some cynics might even wonder if this particular store was not just being cased for a burglary by some really innovative robbers!

A number of store owners would be likely to object to the feature on grounds of privacy and security, especially if Google does not make specific provisions to avoid inadvertently disclosing the location of intruder detection systems, security cameras and other systems or personnel that might make the store more vulnerable to attack.

As of now Google has refused to confirm whether or not they are actually working on such a project. One does hope, though, that if they were not, they would have been smart enough to warn the public to prevent any further such activity.

It is believed that they will use Google Maps and Street View in a manner similar to what they are already offering in Australia since a few months ago. Early reports show that the Australian real estate search service is getting a good response. Estate agents list the sites available to them, along with all details for free, and Google provides a picture of the front of the property via Street View.

If Google does launch a similar service in the U.K. they could earn a lot of revenue from the advertising potential that this service would generate.

Spokespersons from various agencies who have heard of this service, have said that this move could be interesting and it is likely to affect other property listing sites, especially if Google offers this service for free.

It is also likely that the newspaper industry may suffer further losses as a result of such a service. The newspaper industry is already suffering from loss of advertising in their real estate classified section, due a combination of a fall in the real estate market and due to similar services being offered on other websites.

Google has so far refrained from making any comment on the subject.

Google Real Estate Search Australia

Update:

This service is now live in the UK, as of 16 June 2010.

Along with the search results for most location-specific queries, Google provides this list of geo-specific search results, which they determine from the keywords in the query and the geographic location of the searcher.

Local Business Results on Google Web Search

The local business results within the universal search results are quite extensive and inclusive. Earlier, they used to appear only when the user included a specific location in his query, but for some time now, Google provides these local business results even for queries without a specific local qualification to the keyword if the query is deemed to be typically meant for localised searches, such as “nearest pizza”.

This universal search result includes detailed information about the businesses in the given location, including phone numbers and direct links to the website.

Due to this addition, the number of referrals to Internet directory services has shown a marked downward trend.

A study of the progress graph of various internet yellow pages, including those in the U.K., Canada and Australia, shows this downward trend.

Decline in percentage visits from search engines

The graph above charts the percentage of visits to the leading UK directory assistance services’ websites that came from a search engine. Over the past 3 months, most of these services have seen a fall of 1% to 8% in the percentage of traffic being referred from search.

While this is bad for these local directories, it is certainly a great convenience for Google’s users, as they do not need to go from one page to another, to find answers to their queries.

It is, of course, possible for these directory assistance sites to fight back, if they are innovative and put in a lot more effort. In fact, some directory services such as Yelp, Zillow and ServiceMagic have managed to maintain steady growth internationally in spite of Google’s onslaught.

These real estate seekers can now make use of Google Maps to solve various problems before actually making the deal. They can first use Google Street View to get a detailed idea of what the neighbourhood is like, and to decide whether or not it would be suitable for their requirements.

Next, home buyers / renters can get directions on how to get to the locality. They can also make use of Google Transit to find out the routes they would be required to use once they move into that locality.

Now, when users want to look for some information about real estate, they can enter a query on Google Maps, say, ‘homes for sale’ in a particular city or a specific area of the city, and Google Maps will provide all the results on a map with a box at the side which will give details of each property available on the listing.

As a further improvement, they will not only highlight the 10 best properties with pins on the map but will also put small circles on all the other listings in the given locality. By clicking on each individual marker or circle, further details about that property will be displayed.

Based on feedback received from users, Google will now provide the address of the property first, followed by the number of bedrooms and bathrooms instead of the other way around, as they used to do earlier.

Users can now see all the properties available to them, at a glance on the web in the comfort of their own home or office, before narrowing down their choices, and then actually visiting just one or two properties before finalizing the deal.

Real estate listings can be posted one at a time via a form on Google, through data feeds or by tying in estate agency databases with the Maps system via a Google Base API. Listings for the same property from multiple agencies get grouped together

At present this service is only available in the U.S. and Australia and New Zealand.

• Google Maps US real estate search
• Australia real estate search
• New Zealand real estate search

Twitter users in and around the area started sending eye-witness accounts of the events on a minute by minute basis. Almost 70 – 80 tweets were posted within 5 seconds, and since Twitter has over 6 million users the news was spread really fast.

In fact, even some of the major Television and radio stations such as BBC and CNN used information sent through Twitter and photos posted on Flickr by ordinary citizens who were present at the spot, such as the ones shown above and below here:

Users not only sent out details about the terrorist attack, but also messages asking people to donate blood at the major hospitals, along with the contact numbers to help out in the crisis. Some people also used the site to reassure their near and dear ones about their safety.

Flickr and Twitter were not the only sites used. A new entry was created on Wikipedia, which local users added details to, as they occurred. Somebody else actually pinpointed the location of the buildings where the mayhem in progress on Google Maps.

While the BBC, CNN and every major newspaper has dedicated a lot of space to the events still unfolding in Mumbai, people increasingly seem to turn to user-generated content on sites like Twitter to get the “real”, unfiltered information as it happens.

Important Note: Please remember that these same tools of communication can be used by the terrorists to keep in touch and convey the latest information to each other. Also if citizens post too many details about the rescue operations in progress, the terrorists can benefit from this information, and change their positions or tactics if necessary. Users must therefore exercise caution regarding the information they send out.

Perhaps the most useful feature in this update is the ability to provide directions with respect to well known landmarks such as petrol pumps, fast food restaurants, convenience and grocery stores, hotels and so on. However, this will be made available only to users in Canada and the U.S.A. for now.

Users will now get a better bird’s eye view of various locations in several cities of North America. 3D images will also be available. Live Search will also provide information about the local weather conditions, and 3D pictures of cloud formations over given areas will be updated every 3 hours.

Locations with similar names and alternate spellings will be accessible through a ‘near-matching’ feature. Related neighborhoods will also be included in the search results.

Localised maps of all regions will be available on desktops as well as on mobile phones. Mobile Internet users will be provided with better imagery than before.

Users will now be able to decide whether they want to choose driving routes based on the shortest time taken, the shortest distance or direction of traffic flow; and all this will be made available with a single click.

Microsoft is definitely as good as Google, if not better, as far as the technology behind their maps is concerned. That, however, is not enough to make Live Search Maps the leading service. Microsoft needs to seriously rethink its overall user acquisition strategy or they will continue to lose market share in spite of having a better product.

Analysts Jim Friedland and Kevin Kopelman report that compared to their earlier study that was conducted in July 2007, the current study shows that Google Maps has progressed considerably, while its competitors, Map Quest by AOL, and Yahoo! Maps have stagnated.

Live Search Maps from Microsoft has shown some improvement in the past year, but their map service still remains the least popular among the top 4 services. Friedland and Kopelman further stated that “Yahoo! and Map Quest do not have the resources to keep pace and are forced to aggressively monetise a declining franchise in the maps segment.”

Apart from having very good maps, Google also has additional features, such as Street View, driving directions, traffic monitoring and public transport directions. But what makes them the winner is simply their dominance as the leading provider of information on the Internet.
The most important rammification of Google’s dominance is the importance map-based data and location-specific information will have in the upcoming mobile Internet market. People on the move will often want to refer to these maps when they are in unknown surroundings. Google Maps will be able to attract advertisers in the near future and hence help companies generate even more revenues. An investment made to improve maps on the Internet today will pay off many times over in the near future.

To start with, this service will only be accessible on BlackBerry and some Java enabled phones, but they hope to bring this technology to other handsets in the near future.

Google Maps for Mobile will now be capable of the same level of imagery as the desktop version, i.e. it will show a 360 degree view of the point in question.

This new feature will help users to pinpoint the exact location of a shop, restaurant, office theatre etc. when they are on the go in an unfamiliar location. All they need to do is click on “Street View” on their mobile phone. They will then be able to see the appropriate street with all details in it, so there is no chance of missing the store, restaurant etc. and having to run around in circles. Even tourists should now have no difficulty going around a new town with the help of this service.

There is also a section here that gives detailed information about bus, train and ferry services to and from different locations along with the fares and timings of the local transport available.

It will be possible to use Street View from any location for which photography is available to Google. It is also possible to click on the map, and select Street View. Street View can be seen on the full screen or as an overlay on the map. The view can also be rotated to see the surrounding area from different angles as one proceeds along the road.

Another feature that Google has incorporated is ‘business reviews’, which will allow users to check whether or not a shop actually sells what the user is looking for, before making a trip down there.

It is also possible to go from one place to another on foot, following the walking directions which have been incorporated. (this feature is presently in beta.)

Google has also increased the speed of these search operations and improved the accuracy of location of a place, under their MyLocation feature. According to Brighthand.com, the MyLocation feature will work best in thickly populated places, which will obviously have more cellular towers, thus improving the cell tower triangulation on the user’s smartphone.

The latest version of Google Maps for mobile can be accessed at google.com/gmm.

Users have been surprised to see that they could not find any information about any cities or roads in Georgia. Even the capital city, T’bilisi, has not been marked. Only blank outlines of Georgia and its neighbours Armenia and Azerbaijan can be seen.

This led to some questions being raised about whether Google simply deleted the maps of these countries from their website following the ongoing conflict.

Fortunately, in this case Google is not playing God / political arbiter. The omission is merely due to the countries not being important enough for Google to bother with! In their own words, “we never launched coverage in those countries because we simply weren’t satisfied with the map data we had available.”

It has been standard policy at Google Maps that if they do not get properly detailed maps, they continue searching for better maps, and do not launch the maps until they are fully satisfied with the material available to them.

In all fairness, if it had not been for the recent upheavals that have occurred in that part of the world, most Google users would never have noticed the absence of detail on these maps.

Based on the feedback received, Google has now realised that users would prefer to have some basic information within maps of these countries rather than nothing at all. In accordance with these sentiments, Google has now decided to change their internal policy, and will introduce maps of the few countries that they have not yet covered, with whatever basic information is available to them.

Some of the other countries that do not yet have detailed Google Maps are Guyana, Suriname, North Korea, South Korea and Argentina. Users can make access information about these places on Google Earth in the meanwhile.

It appears that Googlers in the region were told about Google’s plans in advance. People were out on the street fully prepared. The street was lined by Google employees and friends who were obviously excited about the event, showing off various things.

In fact, one enthusiastic Googler, Michael Weiss-Malik, who works for the Google Geo team, actually put up a sign on the street, asking his beloved to marry him. It was a homemade banner saying “Proposal 2.0: Marry me Leslie!!”.

Later, Weiss also launched a site, MarryMeLeslie.com with an email address for Leslie, where a lot of people wrote to her, advising her to marry Michael.

Weiss explains on the site that he had already proposed to her last April, and she had accepted his proposal. However, he felt that his original proposal had not been exciting enough. He therefore hit upon a novel plan to take this opportunity to propose to his sweetheart, over the Web.

The couple are planning to get married in May!

There is a flip side to all these technological advances. A lot of people, especially in New Zealand, have voiced their fears about their security and privacy being invaded, as the information available on the sites could be misused if it fell into the wrong hands.

Google says that they take their clients concerns very seriously, and will do everything they can to protect users, like blurring faces and number plates where requested. It will also be possible to report any inappropriate imagery and have it deleted.

However, there is no foolproof way to protect ones identity when online, as websites identify all their visitors from the IP address and can easily gather a lot of information about any user.