Switzerland is taking Google to court over privacy concerns related to Google’s Street View service. The BBC reports that Swiss privacy official Hanspeter Thuer is leading the country’s case.

Mr Thuer is especially concerned about people shown in sensitive locations such as hospitals, prisons or schools.

He also said that the height of the camera was problematic because it allowed a view over fences, hedges and walls, meaning that more could be seen from Street View than by a normal passer-by.

Google reps and Thuer met back in August shortly after Street View launched in that country, and Thuer demanded then that Google “immediately withdraw its online service Google Street View concerning Switzerland.” Thuer says Google has not complied with Switzerland’s demands.

The BBC quotes a Google official as saying the company will “vigorously contest” the lawsuit.

For more on Google’s similar, ongoing legal battles around the world, see our Google: Street View archives.

If it sometimes seems that there’s no rhyme or reason to the various tools and products Google adds to its properties, this one will change your mind a bit: Google has (finally, some would say) brought together its local business listings with Street View inside of Google Maps.

As the announcement explains, when looking for businesses in Google Maps, a new Street View link will appear when available as part of the link options for individual businesses. It’ll look something like this:

Clicking the new link takes you into Street View, where the business is now identified in its neighborhood and the red marker remains available so users can continue to access other information and links about the business. A cool feature is that, if other businesses from your search results are nearby, you’ll also see the red pin marker for those businesses while in Street View.

Street View can have a powerful, if somewhat under-appreciated marketing impact. It offers visitors a first impression of local businesses, and that first impression might determine the choice of a restaurant or hotel, for example.

Combining Street View with local business listings makes it even more important for local businesses to claim their listing in Google Maps and make sure the map marker is in the right spot. It also puts more of a burden on Google to prevent business listing hijackings, which sometimes involve moving a business’s map marker to a different location.

Just days after it was launched, Google Street View is now under attack in Switzerland.

On Friday, a Swiss privacy official issued a statement demanding that Google “immediately withdraw its online service Google Street View concerning Switzerland.” Thuer apparently did some Street View browsing of his own and felt that Google hadn’t adequately blurred license plates and people’s faces.

According to InformationWeek, the Swiss complaint came as a surprise. “We were surprised by the FDPIC’s announcement. We have been engaged in constructive dialogue with the organization ahead of [last] week’s launch to demonstrate how we protect people’s privacy on Street View,” says a Google spokesperson.

Thuer met with Google reps today — Google called the meeting “a good exchange of views” and indicated they’re open to additional discussions. Google says very few Swiss users have asked Google to remove Street View images, and when they have, the deletions happen within hours “in most cases.”

In fact, Swiss consumers seem to be quite happy with the service. Google attorney Peter Fleischer tells the AP that “Google Maps had an 80 percent increase in volume and only a small number of requests to erase pictures.”

Street View remains open in Switzerland at the moment.

Perhaps tired of all the legal wrangling and even physical altercations over its Street View program, Google has launched a new Street View web site.

The new site offers some useful information about Street View, like a map showing where it’s available and a list of some cities/towns that are being photographed now. (Google admits the list is incomplete, but hey – it’s a step in the right direction.) There are also some soft and cuddly features like an introduction to Pegman, Street View’s mascot/guide. All of the material is written with a focus on simplicity and a clear message that Street View is nothing to fear.

Google is clearly trying to do a better job of introducing Street View to the general public, many of whom continue to gawk and wonder, What on Earth is that strange car with the Google logo and a big camera contraption on its roof? And why is it driving through my neighborhood taking photos? No doubt Google would like to avoid any repeats of that physical confrontation in the UK, and put an end to all the legal battles it’s dealing with as Street View rolls out around the world.

Once upon a time, my evenings were spent watching the popular British soap opera Coronation Street. And once upon a time, I lived about five miles from Stonehenge. Living back in the US now, Google’s got me covered if I fancy a trip down memory lane. Google Street View is mapping both places — and probably helping to win some more support of Google Street View in the UK, as a result.

Was it only a few months ago when villagers were in the streets blocking Google Street View cars? OK, one village, one car — but yes, it did take a village to stop Street View. And while Google got cleared on the privacy front, we also got news that those scary cameras were going elsewhere — onto a bike and out into the UK wilderness.

To me, this seemed a savvy move to win support for Street View. It’s not just the pedophile-enabling privacy hoover that some in the UK made it out to be. It’s also that cute cuddly tool you use for tourism.

The first bike pictures actually emerged in the US. Google Street View Bike Does Santa Monica, Universities & More covers how you can see the Santa Monica Pier, Santa Monica’s 3rd Street Promenade and the Monterey Bay Coastal Bike Path on it (I will personally volunteer to ride the bike down the Newport Beach boardwalk if Google makes it out here).

But after asking the British public to vote where the Street View bike should go first in the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland, we have a winner. Stonehenge! News.com has a short write-up, and here’s a video from Google itself of the Google Street View trike visiting the stone monument.

Sadly, the cameras stopped rolling after the trike backed up into one and knocked them all down, European Vacation style.

What’s next? Google’s got a release up with more details. The full list to be visited:

• Stonehenge
• Millennium Stadium
• Angel of the North
• Loch Ness
• Eden Project
• Warwick Castle
• Bamburgh Castle

Meanwhile, a Google Street View car is now mapping another popular British destination, that of the fictional Coronation Street, of the UK soap opera of the same name. Here it goes:

Personally, I’m sad they didn’t play the famous theme music as it rolled by. Over at the Coronation Street web site, there’s also short news item about the mapping. Apparently, it’s the first TV soap anywhere to get mapped this way.

Sadly, long standing character Jack Duckworth is moving off the street because of the privacy invasion. Surprised the Sun didn’t go with that for a headline. Ah, there’s always hoping.

Remember that Google Street View bike that was unveiled in May for use to map footpaths in Britain? Turns out, Google has a number of them, and they’re also operating in Japan, Italy and the US. In fact, imagery from them from three spots in California has recently gone online and more will be coming in the next few months.

Google tells me in the US, these areas have gotten Street View photography via bike power:

• Santa Monica Pier
• 3rd Street Promenade
• Monterey Bay Coastal Bike Path

Expect to see some universities added to the list, as well as amusement parks. Places working with Google to do bike-based mapping include:

• University Of Pennsylvania (see AP story for more)
• Penn State
• University Of San Diego
• Legoland California

Legoland! How about Disneyland? Well, Disneyland Paris went live about a week ago, but that was done with a car. If a bike is being brought into any of the other Disney parks, Google’s not saying.

Expect to see the images from other places appear in the next few months, Google says.

Postscript: In related news, apparently two people were arrested on mugging charges in the Netherlands after a crime was caught on a Street View camera.

Google StreetView images are pretty cool, in how you can virtually spin around and see what’s on a street in all directions. But far cooler is a Google StreetView “Holodeck” simulator that Google has at its Mountain View campus. Climb into this, and you get StreetView scenes animated, projected on screens all around you, as if you were inside the camera itself.

I first saw Holodeck back in October, and it’s been kept pretty quiet within the company since. But now Google has brought it out as part of its Google I/O conference today.

Think of it as CircleVision For Streetview, CircleVision being the popular Disneyland and Disneyworld rides where cameras were used to film in 360 degrees. Images were then projected on the walls all around the audience and could produce such a sense of montion that people used handrails to keep themselves stable at times.

The StreetView simulator is designed for an audience of one. It’s a small circular room with a chair in the middle, with images from the Mountain View area constantly being projected. Grab a seat, and you can watch yourself drive virtually through the area, in all directions.

It’s pretty cool. Google’s well known for the many toys and attractions it has at the Googleplex, ranging from the Google Whiteboard Master Plan to the dinosaurs on campus to a replica of SpaceShipOne. Interactively speaking, there’s a live display of search queries shown in various lobbies and a model of the world showing in light where searches are happening. But this is one of the coolest new attractions I’ve seen lately.

Here are some more pictures:

And the ceiling as a manhole cover:

Postscript: TechCrunch has posted a nice short video clip of what it’s like inside:

This is now a familiar story: European privacy concerns and complaints against Google Street View. From angry mobs to European regulators, Google is confronting many more objections as it tries to visually map The Continent than it did in the US.

This installment involves German “data protection regulators” in Hamburg who object to the way that Google is collecting images and the perceived lack of protection for personal privacy. Sanctions are threatened if Google doesn’t comply with regulators’ requests. As the New York Times reports:

[Data protection regulator Johannes] Caspar said during an interview that Google and the German data protection officials were at odds on 12 points involving the operation of Street View. German privacy law forbids dissemination of photos of people or their property without their consent.

The most significant disputes involving Street View, Mr. Caspar said, concern Google’s unauthorized filming of houses and private property and the company’s handling of the photographic data it records but which is later removed from Street View following complaints by property owners . . .

The data protection administrators of 16 German states, led by Hamburg and the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, have objected to Google’s plans for its Street View service. In Kiel, a city on the Baltic Sea, residents last year put stickers on their front doors warning Google not to film their property for the service.

I’m sure that Google will find a way to resolve the dispute. However the conflict over privacy and Street View illustrates the issues that arise when technology crosses borders but laws are different. This issue is an old one and has come up in contexts such as an eBay auction of Nazi artifacts when that auction can virtually reach into states (i.e., Germany) prohibiting such activities.

Another point here is the anti-American subtext in this debate. Google is perceived by many Europeans, much like the US itself, as an intruder and potentially negative influence on its culture. I’m certain that if an EU based company were doing Street View it would face less hostility. Of course the company would probably be more aware of all these sensitivities and issues and perhaps handle them differently. Indeed, there’s a perception of arrogance on Google’s part that many of the locals are also reacting to undoubtedly.

In the U.S., we tend to do our streets big and wide. In Europe, not so much. (I have literally been able to cross a road in Ireland in four steps, and I’m barely 5-foot-9.) This is a problem for Google’s Street View tool and its mission to map the world’s roads — even the smallest car is going to have trouble getting around in some parts of the world.

Until now.

Enter the Google Trike. Google is going to use these big tricycles to take Street View photographs of footpaths in the UK, cobblestone lanes in Rome, and many other similarly car-unfriendly roadways.

But in the UK, this is more than just a cute and unique way to use technology on narrow roads. It’s a way for Google to show skeptical Brits that Street View can be a Good Thing.

In a partnership with VisitBritain, Google is taking the seemingly unprecedented step of inviting the public to help decide what “special image collections” should be added to Street View. They’ve set up a public survey page where UK residents can choose what tourist destinations deserve the extra Street View attention.

It’s an interesting tactic to woo Brits to what Street View offers. Keep in mind that Street View has had a particularly rough road to acceptance in the UK. Privacy International, a watchdog group, filed a complaint with the government just days after Street View launched there. Other UK officials were upset when Street View cameras caught a photo of a naked child. And let’s not forget the UK village that recently flagged down a Street View car and harassed the driver into leaving.

Good thing that guy wasn’t on a tricycle.

It’s somewhat reminiscent of the Australian flyover stunt that Google tried back in 2007, only there’s probably more riding on the success of this bicycle-based outreach in the UK.

(Photo via CNET)

There are several reports today that Greece has banned Google’s Street View … but Google disagrees.

Privacy is Greece’s main concern, just as it’s been with the other villages, towns, cities, national governments, and other organizations that have lined up against Google Street View. Greece’s Data Protection Authority (DPA) announced on Monday that it’s banned Google from taking photos in Greece, and that it wants more information about how long Google will store the images it takes and what Google will do to make sure residents know their privacy rights.

But the BBC reports that Google denies it’s been banned in Greece. A Google spokesperson says:

“Street View has not been banned in Greece. We have received a request for further information and we are happy to continue discussing these issues with them. We will discuss with them whether it is appropriate for us to continue driving in the meantime.”

Google wants to expand Street View to more countries, but it seems many of them don’t want their pictures taken. And so Street View’s rocky road continues….