4 ms·

Germany vs. Google: How Street View Won the Privacy Battle in Europe

32 points by rustoo 3y ago

pavel_lishin 3y ago
The article doesn't actually provide what's promised in the title - it explains nothing about why Street View is back in Germany.
- dgellow 3y ago
  Yes it does? There is a section “Why is Google Street View Working in Germany Now When it Failed Miserably Before?” where the author develops their opinion. And also that information: > In a somewhat transparent attempt to avoid the same issues as in 2010 and 2011, Google is working alongside a German privacy commission this time.
  - pavel_lishin 3y ago
    But there's barely any evidence backing up the author's hypothesis. > Has people’s view of Street View changed since then or has the German desire for privacy evolved? My money is on the latter, although there’s no doubt that some people find Street View so useful that it’s worth the potential invasion of privacy. > Even in 2009 and 2010, some German communities were rallying for Street View to pick their city, in the hopes that it would jumpstart tourism and the local economies, which had undoubtedly taken a hit in the 2008 economic crash. > As time passes, people who lived through German surveillance states die, replaced by a younger generation with no first-hand experience and the fears that come with it. Besides, tech companies like Google and Meta have encroached on privacy one small step at a time. > Like the famous allegory about a frog being slowly boiled alive, privacy violations don’t seem so upsetting when delivered bit by bit over time. One of the world’s most private societies was a longtime holdout to the behemoth that is Google, but it, too, has been boiled.
    - dgellow 3y ago
      Ah yes i disagree with the author, but I understood you were saying they didn’t give an explanation
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  > it explains nothing about why Street View is back in Germany Au contraire. Did you read the last three paragraphs? Major changes can happen gradually.
  - janalsncm 3y ago
    It’s just a hypothesis that should be backed up by data.
    - AlbertCory 3y ago
      > As time passes, people who lived through German surveillance states die, replaced by a younger generation with no first-hand experience and the fears that come with it. you want "data" on the fact that new generations come along? Not everything has to look like a Wikipedia article.
- PeterStuer 3y ago
  It says: Generational change. Memory of the Stazi fades with every new generation. The frog has been boiled in the waters of surveillance capitalism slow and long enough now.
pgeorgi 3y ago
It never was a privacy battle. Germany has the "Panoramafreiheit" (freedom of panorama) defined in https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/urhg/__59.html https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/urhg/__59.html, and that allows to do just what Street View does. Other services offer very similar images (e.g. https://www.mapillary.com/app/?pKey=305780994287217 https://www.mapillary.com/app/?pKey=305780994287217, also Apple Maps as shown in https://www.androidpolice.com/apple-google-street-view-germany-no-excuse-being-bad/ https://www.androidpolice.com/apple-google-street-view-germa...) and nobody cared. This was about Google, and it was at a time where the large German publishers tried to monetize Google Search linking to them (again not caring much about anybody else doing the same kind of indexing and linking), and the Street View frenzy was to a large part a media campaign. My pet theory is that they tried to reign in on the advertising competition.
- moritzwarhier 3y ago
  Nah that's barely scratching the tip of the iceberg. Likelihood for a shot of a house and one person in front of it, facing the camera, is non-zero. Could be a passersby or even the person living there leaving their house. Both don't qualify for "panoramafreiheit", afaik. Google was just a good exemplary case. What I'm not sure about is the freedom to photograph buildings per se. AFAIK, "panoramafreiheit" applies here. But Google just chose to bow to every removal request, since manually checking them would have been to expensive.
  - interloxia 3y ago
    Another interesting example is public art exhibitions. Posting photos to social media without a license has been problematic. Search for Hamburg Blue Port as an example.
  - pgeorgi 3y ago
    Panoramafreiheit also covers picture containing people as long as they aren't the focus or reason of the image, but things get more complicated there (and individual cases could override things). The blurring of people, name plates, license plates and the like (which already existed, that wasn't driven by German concerns) helps a lot in that regard. Blurring entire buildings was the compromise made specifically for Germany[1], but that was used so much that further bring-up of Street View probably wasn't worth their while. And that was to some degree due to the media frenzy back in the day. I mean, some people actually thought it would be live video of every location! (yes, Germany has its share of tech-illiterate hillbillies, and wow, are they vocal...) So now Google tries again and crossed all the t's and dotted all the i's and this article has the following to say about this: "In a somewhat transparent attempt to avoid the same issues as in 2010 and 2011, Google is working alongside a German privacy commission this time", as if working with the DPAs is something sinister. "somewhat transparent attempt", really? You just can't please some people... [1] Side note: France doesn't have an equivalent to the freedom of panorama, and stuff like the illumination pattern of the Eiffel tower falls under copyright, with cases prosecuted for that. Yet it was pretty much fully visible on Street View from early on.
chx 3y ago
Meanwhile Street View is near useless in Malta because it's from 2016. In a country where most stores are very small and have zero web presence, Street View would be invaluable to find them but you can't -- unless they've been here for eight years.
- bojan 3y ago
  I feel you, the imagery for my home town of Belgrade is from 2014. The city's changed a lot in the past 10 years, but you can't see it on Street View. On the other hand, Google Maps does make use of the public transport API, which is extremely useful.
lifestyleguru 3y ago
Nobody cares anymore about German "privacy" dramas.
aiauthoritydev2 3y ago
Europe: where they build nothing but obstruct everything.

32 points by rustoo 3y ago

The article doesn't actually provide what's promised in the title - it explains nothing about why Street View is back in Germany.

dgellow 3y ago
Yes it does? There is a section “Why is Google Street View Working in Germany Now When it Failed Miserably Before?” where the author develops their opinion. And also that information: > In a somewhat transparent attempt to avoid the same issues as in 2010 and 2011, Google is working alongside a German privacy commission this time.
- pavel_lishin 3y ago
  But there's barely any evidence backing up the author's hypothesis. > Has people’s view of Street View changed since then or has the German desire for privacy evolved? My money is on the latter, although there’s no doubt that some people find Street View so useful that it’s worth the potential invasion of privacy. > Even in 2009 and 2010, some German communities were rallying for Street View to pick their city, in the hopes that it would jumpstart tourism and the local economies, which had undoubtedly taken a hit in the 2008 economic crash. > As time passes, people who lived through German surveillance states die, replaced by a younger generation with no first-hand experience and the fears that come with it. Besides, tech companies like Google and Meta have encroached on privacy one small step at a time. > Like the famous allegory about a frog being slowly boiled alive, privacy violations don’t seem so upsetting when delivered bit by bit over time. One of the world’s most private societies was a longtime holdout to the behemoth that is Google, but it, too, has been boiled.
  - dgellow 3y ago
    Ah yes i disagree with the author, but I understood you were saying they didn’t give an explanation
AlbertCory 3y ago
> it explains nothing about why Street View is back in Germany Au contraire. Did you read the last three paragraphs? Major changes can happen gradually.
- janalsncm 3y ago
  It’s just a hypothesis that should be backed up by data.
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    > As time passes, people who lived through German surveillance states die, replaced by a younger generation with no first-hand experience and the fears that come with it. you want "data" on the fact that new generations come along? Not everything has to look like a Wikipedia article.
PeterStuer 3y ago
It says: Generational change. Memory of the Stazi fades with every new generation. The frog has been boiled in the waters of surveillance capitalism slow and long enough now.

pgeorgi 3y ago

It never was a privacy battle. Germany has the "Panoramafreiheit" (freedom of panorama) defined in https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/urhg/__59.html https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/urhg/__59.html, and that allows to do just what Street View does. Other services offer very similar images (e.g. https://www.mapillary.com/app/?pKey=305780994287217 https://www.mapillary.com/app/?pKey=305780994287217, also Apple Maps as shown in https://www.androidpolice.com/apple-google-street-view-germany-no-excuse-being-bad/ https://www.androidpolice.com/apple-google-street-view-germa...) and nobody cared. This was about Google, and it was at a time where the large German publishers tried to monetize Google Search linking to them (again not caring much about anybody else doing the same kind of indexing and linking), and the Street View frenzy was to a large part a media campaign. My pet theory is that they tried to reign in on the advertising competition.

moritzwarhier 3y ago
Nah that's barely scratching the tip of the iceberg. Likelihood for a shot of a house and one person in front of it, facing the camera, is non-zero. Could be a passersby or even the person living there leaving their house. Both don't qualify for "panoramafreiheit", afaik. Google was just a good exemplary case. What I'm not sure about is the freedom to photograph buildings per se. AFAIK, "panoramafreiheit" applies here. But Google just chose to bow to every removal request, since manually checking them would have been to expensive.
- interloxia 3y ago
  Another interesting example is public art exhibitions. Posting photos to social media without a license has been problematic. Search for Hamburg Blue Port as an example.
- pgeorgi 3y ago
  Panoramafreiheit also covers picture containing people as long as they aren't the focus or reason of the image, but things get more complicated there (and individual cases could override things). The blurring of people, name plates, license plates and the like (which already existed, that wasn't driven by German concerns) helps a lot in that regard. Blurring entire buildings was the compromise made specifically for Germany[1], but that was used so much that further bring-up of Street View probably wasn't worth their while. And that was to some degree due to the media frenzy back in the day. I mean, some people actually thought it would be live video of every location! (yes, Germany has its share of tech-illiterate hillbillies, and wow, are they vocal...) So now Google tries again and crossed all the t's and dotted all the i's and this article has the following to say about this: "In a somewhat transparent attempt to avoid the same issues as in 2010 and 2011, Google is working alongside a German privacy commission this time", as if working with the DPAs is something sinister. "somewhat transparent attempt", really? You just can't please some people... [1] Side note: France doesn't have an equivalent to the freedom of panorama, and stuff like the illumination pattern of the Eiffel tower falls under copyright, with cases prosecuted for that. Yet it was pretty much fully visible on Street View from early on.

chx 3y ago

Meanwhile Street View is near useless in Malta because it's from 2016. In a country where most stores are very small and have zero web presence, Street View would be invaluable to find them but you can't -- unless they've been here for eight years.

bojan 3y ago
I feel you, the imagery for my home town of Belgrade is from 2014. The city's changed a lot in the past 10 years, but you can't see it on Street View. On the other hand, Google Maps does make use of the public transport API, which is extremely useful.

lifestyleguru 3y ago

Nobody cares anymore about German "privacy" dramas.

aiauthoritydev2 3y ago

Europe: where they build nothing but obstruct everything.