G not prosecuted in Germany. Google Privacy Inquiries Get Little Cooperation. Gero Breloer/DPA A Google Street View car taking photographs in Berlin. German regulators sought information on data Google collected. After months of negotiation, Johannes Caspar, a German data protection official, forced to show him exactly what its Street View cars had been collecting from potentially millions of his fellow citizens. Snippets of e-mails, photographs, passwords, chat messages, postings on Web sites and social networks — all sorts of private Internet communications — were casually scooped up as the specially equipped cars photographed the world’s streets. “It was one of the biggest violations of data protection laws that we had ever seen,” Mr. Google might be one of the coolest and smartest companies of this or any era, but it also upsets a lot of people — competitors who argue it wields its tremendous weight unfairly, officials like Mr. But never count Google out. People willingly, at times eagerly, surrender this information.
Berlin court rules Google Street View is legal in Germany | Science & Technology | Deutsche Welle | 21.03.2011. A Berlin court has ruled that Google Street View is, in fact, legal in Germany. Last Tuesday, the Berlin State Supreme Court (Kammergericht) announced its decision in a court case from late last year, in which a woman had sued Google, fearing that photos of her, her family and the front of her house would be posted on Google Street View and would thus violate her property and privacy rights. The court ruled that it is legal to take photographs from street level, rejecting her argument that Google was trying to take unauthorized pictures.
Part of her argument rested on the fact that Google used cameras mounted at three meters (9.84 feet) high, which could see over her two-meter-high hedge. However, the court did not find this argument convincing, given that the photographs were taken from the street, and not the sidewalk. This is the first high-level court ruling, which cannot be appealed any further, regarding Street View since the service debuted in Germany at the end of last year.
German Street View error lets iPhone users see hidden images. November 05, 2010, 8:00 AM — Google is facing fresh complaints over Street View in Germany, after technical problems caused some properties to be visible rather than blurred in a preview of the service launched earlier this week. Users of Apple iPads and iPhones found that the blurring was not complete on their devices, said Johannes Caspar, head of the Data Protection Agency (DPA) for Hamburg, on Friday. Google released imagery for the city of Oberstaufen and landmarks in five other German cities on Tuesday. Google "agreed with our objections that nobody should see these pictures," Caspar said. The company has agreed to black out the images, Caspar said. But the error is raising questions over how Google is handling the blurred images, which under an agreement with the DPA should be deleted from the company's databases, Caspar said.
"We have to face the fact that Google has problems, and maybe these problems come from the fact they haven't deleted the raw material," Caspar said. Setting Hurdles for Google and Others: 'Germans Like to Look, But Not to Be Looked At' - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International. High-level German politicians seem to love holding summit meetings -- the more pressing the issue, the greater the priority it will get.
This week, the issue is Google and the Street View service it plans to launch in the country before the end of the year. By now, it is no secret that Street View has been a lightning rod for criticism in Germany. The country's interior minister, Thomas de Maizière, said Tuesday he would convene a summit meeting, titled the "Digitalization of Town and Country," on Sept. 20. He wants to invite all participants to the negotiating table: government ministers, consumer, data and privacy protection officials as well as the companies in question -- including, above all, Google. In an interview published in the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper on Tuesday, Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger called on de Maizière to quickly reform the country's data protection law.
An Uproar Across the Country Fears of Unintended Collateral Damage But de Maizière disagrees. Germany: liability for an unsecured private WiFi network. An interesting case has been decided by the German BGH on 12 May 2010. A private individual left his home WiFi router unsecured (on factory default settings). Someone downloaded a copyright protected piece of music using the unsecured WiFi spot. The owner could show that he was, at the time of the download, on vacation and could therefore not have been the one downloading. The owner of the copyright in the song sued for copyright infringement, asking for an injunction and financial damages.
The first instance court both issued an injunction and found the owner of the WiFi spot liable to pay damages. The second instance court reversed and dismissed the claim of the copyright holder. The German Supreme Court (BGH) distinguished between the injunction and the financial damages: the owner of the WiFi spot could be enjoined, but was not liable for financial damages. Germany gets new privacy tool from Google. Germany opposes Google Street View switch-on. 20 September 2010Last updated at 18:34 Germany is the largest country in Europe without Street View The German government has called for voluntary data protection code to be in place by 7 December 2010. The move follows a meeting with Google, Apple and other companies to discuss how personal data is accessible on line. It comes as the German newspaper Der Spiegel reports that "several hundred thousand" people have opted out of Google's Street View service.
Google has yet to launch its service in Germany, following privacy complaints. The German Interior Minister, Thomas de Maiziere, said that the proposal to establish a code by 7 December "met with approval" and that it will enable users to obtain information on the gathering and intended user of data "in a user-friendly way". Opt-out concerns Google wants the mapping service of 20 German cities live by November 2010, but extended the deadline for users to opt out of its Street View mapping service until 15 October. Google Street View Under Fire for Privacy in Germany.
Google is under fire again over privacy issues in Germany after initial concerns over WiFi sniffing regarding the Google Street View team. This time, German officials are concerned that Google is only giving building owners only 4 weeks of time to opt out and have their buildings not show up on Google Street View. Google says that it will implement Street View in twenty of the largest German cities, including Munich and Berlin, and property owners will have four weeks to register to ensure their buildings do not show up online. In a blog post, Germany Federal Commissioner of Data Protection Peter Schaar argues that “Objections should be possible at all times” and that “it should also be ensured that all complaints are dealt with before” Google rolls out Street View in Germany.
For its part, Google says that it will honor requests to obscure buildings within the four-week windows. Google To Provide WiSpy Data To Germany And France | eWEEK Europ. Responding to the growing outcry over it privacy practices, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said the search engine will cede the data it accidentally collected over WiFi to regulators in Germany, France and Spain. Google on 14 May acknowledged that its Street View cars, which take pictures for Google Maps, unwittingly collected 600 gigabytes’ worth of fragmented e-mail, Web browsing and other data from unsecured WiFi networks.
This happened in 33 regions, including the United States, Ireland, Denmark, Germany, Hong Kong, Spain and France from 2007 until Google discovered the faux pas this year and said it ceased collecting WiFi data for good. WiSpy Incident While Google deleted data in Ireland, Denmark and Austria, it did not do so in Germany and other countries, citing the need to review privacy laws and other legal issues. Google will also publish the results of an external audit into its Street View data collection practice. Unknown Amounts Of Data Reps.