Google's Street View expansion brings privacy jitters

Google's expansion of the street view option for its mapping service into another eight US cities has renewed privacy concerns over what it photographs.

With the addition of the new cities, 23 municipalities can now be viewed in a realistic street-level view through Google Maps. While the focus is currently on the major cities of this country, Google says it plans to add cities big and small in the future.

However, some are a little disturbed by the potential invasion of privacy that the service may present. There's no telling what the roving Google Maps trucks could see, and some don't want to be part of Google's application.

The images are clear enough that people photographed would be able to be identified rather easily. Additionally, in some cases the photos may be clear enough that users could peer inside buildings in the imagery.

For example, this could be a problem for those wishing privacy in their daily lives. When the service launched in San Francisco, critics noted they could identify the faces of those entering adult bookstores. In other cases, license plate numbers of cars are clearly visible.

Google has the technology to obscure these details, including faces, but won't be using it in the United States. Other countries require the Mountain View, Calif. company to do so, and it would be used there.

"In the privacy realm, Google is asking people for a lot of trust. The ball is really in Google's court to prove they're not going to violate people's privacy," Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School John Palfrey told the Boston Globe.