Such images include a man walking into a sex shop, a man vomiting, whilst another showed a group of people being arrested; not exactly appealing images for your local street. There have also been reports of images displaying people’s homes and the streets they reside on, which has not pleased many residents.

As a result, offending images have been replaced with a black screen and the words: “This image is no longer available”. Whilst it is not surprising that a few offending images were discovered, Google have claimed that the percentage is very small, and a lot less than expected. In fact, it has been stated by Google that they are more than happy to remove any images if they are asked.

Furthermore, faces and registration plates contained in images are blurred out. This was in order to maintain privacy rights, which was ruled in 2008 by the Information Commissioner’s Office. But this was not to be the case for various areas in Birmingham, where several faces and numbers plates were not blurred out.

However, despite such concerns there are still many individuals who are pleased with what Street View has to offer so far; DigMo! being one fan particularly impressed with the service.
To date, Google’s Street View is available in nine countries; including the United States, Netherlands, Japan, Italy, Australia, France, New Zealand and Spain. Within in the UK, Google have mapped the streets of more than 25 cities.

Street View has raised many privacy concerns due to the images being captured without people’s permission. In addition, there are individuals questioning the overall purpose of the service. But such concerns should not affect the overall popularity of the street mapping service; whether it’s for genuine research or perhaps even entertainment purposes.