This place is not camera-friendly at the moment... please, stay away

One of the innovations that differentiated Google Maps location search platform from the conventional online maps is the Street View technology, which features panoramic views of the search targets. The map goes beyond displaying a dot, it shows the user the actual appearance of the place and often the target of search itself.

The Street View tool was developed exclusively by Google. Specially adapted cars with mounted cameras, tricycles, snowmobiles were making pictures of places. Additional technologies, like face blurring, helped to decrease the resolution and incorporate the pictures into Google Maps. A lot of work, but it was worth it. The product is helpful not only to individuals, but also to businesses. For example, real estate brokers now have the images of the properties at a mouse click.

Despite the utility of Street View technology, there are several issues with the product which may block its penetration to some areas:

1) Privacy. Probably the biggest and the most disturbing issue for Google. It may seem funny, but some of the images were found "to show men leaving strip clubs, protesters at an abortion clinic, sunbathers in bikinis, cottagers at public parks, people picking up prostitutes and people engaging in activities visible from public property in which they do not wish to be seen publicly".

2) Appearance. People complain that some places are just not photogenic at the time of filming :) Early spring is not the best time to make photos of Saskatoon in Canada. The unfavorable image of the city may have a wrong impression on people who have never been there. "For Google to record its images of the city at this most visually unappealing time of year is like photographing a beautiful woman who has just awakened from a six-month coma", MacPherson, Les (28 March 2009), Saskatoon Star-Phoenix. Many pictures had to be re-taken by Google just for that reason.

3) Security. Apparently some pictures were taken to display security-sensitive areas, like military bases and police stations. Those had to be removed immediately upon request.

To address the above, Google is already using certain techniques, like face-blurring technology and lower camera height. However, some countries, like Denmark, are not yet ready to display their lives online with no apparent consent. Unreasonable to me, how would Google image differ from a random photo taken by a photographer??? Would a photographer have to pay Mr. Peck 7,000 quid???

"On an evening in August 1995, a 42-year-old called Geoffrey Peck attempted suicide by cutting his wrists with a kitchen knife while on Brentwood High Street in Essex, England. CCTV cameras caught the action, the council's CCTV operator alerted the police and the police intervened. Peck lived. But still images from the CCTV footage were sold by the local council to the media. Peck took his complaint as far as the European Court of Human Rights and won. Peck won damages of £7,000."