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.

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.

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.

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.

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.