After more than two years, and a few important concessions from Google, the Czech Republic is letting the company resume its Street View service. As Czech Position reports, Google has agreed to several conditions put forth by the Czech Office for Personal Data Protection: Google will take photos closer to ground level to avoid photographing personal property over fences/walls. Google will give Czech citizens a method to demand that their property be removed from Street View. Google will blur license plates/registration information on vehicles. Google will pre-announce when it's plan [...]

Related Topics: Google: Outside US | Google: Street View

As promised, Google has announced a way for WiFi router owners to stop Google from including them in the company's location database. The opt-out requires a change in the name of the wireless network (the SSID) to include _nomap at the end of the name. In other words, if your wireless network is named "McGeehome," you'd need to rename that to "McGeehome_nomap." (And frankly, I'd prefer you use your own last name while you're at it.) Google says this method "provides the right balance of simplicity as well as protection against abuse. Specifically, this approach helps protect against ot [...]

Related Topics: Google: Privacy | Google: Street View | Legal: Privacy

There have been many stories in the past of criminals (of one sort or another) using Google, Foursquare and Facebook to target people who many not be home or, in the case of Google Earth and Street View, which homes to target. A recent survey of 50 convicted burglars by UK security firm Friedland Response and reported by the UK's Sky News argues that Google and social media tools are being used extensively to target people. Nearly 80 percent of the 50 ex-burglars surveyed strongly believed that Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare were being used by current criminals, and nearly 75 percent s [...]

Related Topics: Facebook | Features: Analysis | Foursquare | Google: Earth | Google: Street View | Top News | Twitter

With the smoke still smoldering from Google's long-running battle over the collection of personal information via unsecured WiFi networks, the company says it's working on a service that will allow WiFi router owners to opt-out from being included in Google's location services. In a blog post yesterday, Google says the opt-out will be available to people around the world. Even though the wireless access point signals we use in our location services don't identify people, we think we can go further in protecting people's privacy. At the request of several European data protection authorit [...]

Related Topics: Google: Legal | Google: Outside US | Google: Street View | Legal: Privacy

Google has made what amounts to a promising downpayment on more ambitious travel search tools with its new Flight Search, debuting today. Launching initially for a select group of US cities Google users will have access to an expanded range of airline search options and a much more verticalized experience than has been available in the past on Google. This is the first product to emerge from Google's controversial acquisition of travel software company ITA, which closed in April and included concessions and guarantees to existing ITA customers such as Kayak, Microsoft, Orbitz, Hotwire and [...]

Related Topics: Features: Analysis | Google: Acquisitions | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Street View | Search Engines: Travel Search Engines | Top News