Don’t look for me on Google

Headlining with "Google comes to town," Frankfurter Rundschau reports on the surprise announcement of official authorisation for the American corporation’s "Street View", which will be made available for 20 German cities starting in 2010. Over the last three years, the introduction of the Google technology, which already provides panoramic views of public space in 23 countries worldwide, has been blocked by opposition from the government in Berlin and a large section of the German population, which considers it an infringement of personal privacy. In view of this context, the daily reports that the German launch will be subject to "unprecedented" restrictions: among other measures, the government has made available a downloadable form for owners or tenants who wish to prevent Google from publishing photographs of particular buildings, and their immediate environment. The American firm has acknowledged that it has already received several thousand of these forms from opponents of its project.