Despite hundreds of thousands of Germans opting out of Street View (and subsequently having their homes blurred), the service has finally launched in a few small corners of Germany.
The first place discovered with coverage is the small town of Oberstaufen, which welcomed Google with baked goods when they came to town.
Other places with some coverage include Berlin, Stuttgart, Hamburg, Munich, Gelsenkirchen and Dortmund, though it’s mostly just stadiums and small sections in the center of each city. Google Maps Mania has a nice list of some of those venues.
If you’re not familiar with using Street View in Google Earth, check out this great tutorial that Frank created last year.
If you notice any updated areas outside of Germany, please leave a comment and let us know.
About Mickey Mellen
Mickey has been using Google Earth since it was released in 2005, and has created a variety of geo-related sites including Google Earth Hacks. He runs a web design firm in Marietta, GA, where he lives with his wife and two kids.
Still not Belgium, c’mon Google 🙁
Oberstaufen looks good, and personally I will be very interested to look round Germany if more SV is launched.
But no wonder German householders are suspicious and Google is being ultra cautious when Google is facing action by data protection authorities elsewhere in Europe for collecting personal wi-fi data via the SV cars (now apparently being deleted), still without any convincing legitimate explanation.
Still no Poland :/
just few photos ….not the entire citites …big dissapointment !!!! minus 1 point for google this time!!!!
This is just meant to be a preview!! Google will release the imagery of Germany’s 20 biggest cities in two weeks!!
Google Street View cars in Estonia > http://uudised.ekspressauto.ee/news/auto/article.php?id=34522863&l=fplead
There is a legitimate explanation to Google capturing that data: it was a mistake. I would also point out that the real fault does not lie with Google in this instance. The real fault lies with the muppets using unencrypted wifi.
They broadcast their passwords and other information in the clear and then expect it to remain private!! It’s the same as a couple having a loud argument about their sex life and then being surprised when the neighbours know all about it.
What this and the release of Firesheep have massively reinforced is that most people and organisations cannot be relied upon to have even remotely sensible security policies on their own. There needs to be enforcement of secure practices through disallowing of insecure configurations. For example wireless routers should only allow WPA connections to be established with no option for unencrypted connections or for WEP connections. Over the web TLS connections should be the norm with no option for unencrypted connections.
The flip side of this problem is security theatre, as practised by the TSA and by those who insist on policies like changing passwords every 90 days (which makes a person more likely to forget a password and consequently more likely to write it down) or claim that MAC address filtering or not broadcasting an SSID make wifi secure. Both security theatre and nitwits not even trying to be secure in their operations are enormous problems which do not have simple, universal solutions. There are things which can be done however, as enumerated for the case of wifi in a previous paragraph. In order to develop effective practices the threat being countered must be tightly and precisely defined and the steps used must accomplish the goal of defeating the threat without undue hardship or inconvenience. It is tough balance to achieve.
10x Joeran!!!
David Newton – nothing you say legitimizes the invasion of privacy nor the potential breaches of data protection law in Europe, and it is extraordinary that an organisation with the resources of Google was apparently not aware of what it was doing.
This recent BBC story http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11650692 gives a flavour of the rows that have been ignited and the back-tracking by Google which is at the cost of the legitimate use of Street View, for example with suspensions of photography.
I live in Munich in a part of a more-family-house with 8 apartsments (the whole block has more then 20- the others are not blured..- somebody asked to blurr in my part…
My question is: Is that so that somebody has more civil rights than me?? I’m not agreeing to blur this house – Streetview is a fantastic tool to plan trips and to get a first overview of an new area whereever- it part of the common- world wide comunity- it’s a sign of transparency and democracy-
unfortunately I don’t know where I can let reopen this stupid bluring- unfortunately Germany is full of really Krauts – people who have obviously something to hide… their problem- but I don’t accept that somebody cuts my civil rights- … I have plenty of friends worldwide- and I’m shure that they all wanna see where and how my house where I’m living looks like – like I love to see or to remember where I was or where i plan to go…we all know that it#s a very dumb compromise to get Streetview in germany- ok but in a house o 8 families, nobody can decide for all the others… that’s illegal and Google should avoid to blur the whole house – U can blur trhe single apartment- so everybody knows what a Kraut is living inside ;-)- we say here in Bavaria: “living and let living the others …”:-))
I’ve been waiting for a long time to watch the Munich-Streetview-Pictures and I think most of them are okay. It’s a good idea for tourists, so they can plan their holidays in good old München. 🙂
All right, finally. Now it’s time for a good German Bier
just a problem for people who have something to hide
Street view I find great. For I can do for my music events events already an impression of the buildings. So before I go there. That’s a big help to me. I can thus assess how great the location is and what equipment I take with the best.
A huge chunk of Street view is missing on the west side of the river Rhine Krefeld and Krefeld-Uerdingen Germany, perhaps you can tell me why?
Jeremy Handley
Please please please I Neunkirchen in Germany. .
I’m happy, that I live in a small town, witch istn’t interested by Google…