The company says it’s shut down Streetside imagery in Germany after complaints about the way the company was handling blurring requests. Microsoft spokesperson Thomas Baumgartner tells PCWorld that he’s not sure if or when Streetside will be reinstated in Germany.

A Microsoft statement says that the complaints are from “customers,” not from any government data protection-related agencies.

We have learned that there are a limited number of customers in Germany who raised concerns about the way we are pursuing their respective blurring requests. As we take privacy and data protection of our customers very seriously, we decided to take down the StreetSide Beta service in Germany, while evaluating these single cases and working on a solution.

Despite the decision to take Streetside images offline, Microsoft says it will continue its Streetside photography plans in Germany, which currently include taking pictures in about 30 areas during the remainder of 2012.

Microsoft announced its plans to bring Streetside, its road-level photography service, to Germany in April 2011, despite a long list of challenges that Google faced with its Street View service in the country. But with Bing’s miniscule visibility (i.e., market share) in Germany, Microsoft received relatively few objections to the service in its first six months.

* sarcasm

As part of the transition, search advertisers that are still on Yahoo’s platform in those countries will need to migrate to adCenter because Yahoo Search Marketing accounts will shift to read-only status. But, in a blog post today about the pending change, Microsoft suggests monitoring both accounts during the transition:

As Yahoo! ad serving moves to adCenter, and your clicks and impressions in that account begin to increase, you’ll see a corresponding decrease in clicks and impressions in your Yahoo! Search Marketing account. It is thus important to continue managing your campaigns across both platforms throughout this transition phase, in order to avoid missing out on any potential clicks.

The transition is expected to begin “as early as” January April 18th and be complete by the end of the month. [Ed. note: Apologies for the typo there on the month!]

Microsoft says the transition is coming later this year to Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

A recently enacted law seeks to remove all such content from the internet in India. Facebook, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft were sued under the law and had been arguing in Indian court that it was all but impossible for them to comply as a practical matter. The law makes online publishers potentially liable for the acts of individual users and third parties (think “offensive” blog hosted on Blogger or “objectionable” video uploaded to YouTube).

According to a BBC report Indian Communications Minister Kapil Sibal said the following in December about the desired impact of the new law:

My aim is that insulting material never gets uploaded. We will evolve guidelines and mechanisms to deal with the issue. [The companies] will have to give us the data, where these images are being uploaded and who is doing it.

Google, Facebook and others had argued that they had no control over individuals and should not be held liable for their conduct accordingly. They said they cannot “pre-filter” material generated by millions of users. This is what would be called a “prior restraint” against free speech in the US.

Indian courts have been unsympathetic and demanded that the companies comply or be blocked entirely “like in China.” The BBC says that the companies have now complied and removed offending material at issue in a particular civil lawsuit.

However the overly vague nature of the statute on which these claims are based almost guarantees that Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft and other online publishers in India will face a steady stream of litigation from individuals or groups “offended” by this or that image, article or video.

Stock image used under license from Shutterstock

Related Entries

• Free Speech Battle In India: Google, Facebook Summoned By Court Over “Inflammatory Images”
• India Set To Bring Heavy Hand Of Censorship Down On Facebook, Google
• EU Ready To Impose Tough Privacy Rules On Google, Facebook
• US Government Makes Most Content Removal Requests To Google So Far in 2011

Mittlerweile benutzen fast 10 Millionen Nutzer in Deutschland regelmäßig Bing, das sind 20 Prozent der aktiven Internetnutzer hierzulande.

According to several third-party sources, Bing’s market share is smaller than the 20 percent figure cited above. For example, the following is StatCounter’s search engine data for Germany:

Source: StatCounter

NetMarketshare generally agrees, showing Bing’s PC search share at just over 2 percent.

The combined Bing-Yahoo “search alliance” share in the US is about 30 percent. However the search alliance has considerably less reach in Europe. While the organic-results merger was completed last year, Microsoft adCenter is just now rolling out in Europe.

Related Entries

• Search Alliance Begins First AdCenter Testing In Europe
• December “Explicit” Search Numbers: Bing Now Ahead Of Yahoo
• Report: Google Controls 44 Percent Of Global Online Advertising
• Bing, Yahoo Now Neck & Neck In US Search Market Share

It’s not clear whether this is limited to China or will be used in other markets where English is spoken. We’ve asked Microsoft for some additional color and perspective.

Baidu controls roughly 80 percent of the search market in China, according to several sources. Google is second with approximately 19 percent.

A Bloomberg report suggests the Baidu-Bing partnership is limited to providing English results to domestic Chinese users. If so those results will likely face the same censorship rules that Google rebelled against early last year.

We’ll update this post if Microsoft gets back to us.

Postscript: A Microsoft spokesperson offered the following general statement and confirmation of the deal:

Baidu and Microsoft have announced that Bing, Microsoft’s decision engine, will provide English search results to Baidu users in China.

Thomas Kranig, head of the Bavarian State Office for Data Protection, has issued a statement (in German; here’s a Google translation to English) giving objections to Bing’s plans for letting residents opt-out of Streetside photography.

In short, Kranig says Bing should allow residents to opt-out before any photographs are published online. Bing’s plan is to publish the photographs first and then allow residents to request image blocking. Bing says it should take no more than two days for such requests to be processed and the images to be blurred.

There’s already a website (German) which explains what Streetside is, lists where the Streetside cars will be driving and photographing and — Microsoft says — that’s also where residents will eventually be able to request to have images blurred.

In some German news articles, Kranig is quoted as saying the two sides will continue to negotiate on this issue; in another article, he seems to be threatening to ban Streetside and let German courts decide the matter.

According to this Yahoo blog post, Bing is now powering the Yahoo back-end for organic search in:

• Australia
• Brazil
• Mexico

Bing started powering Yahoo’s organic results in the US and Canada last August.

Yahoo Japan, which is controlled by Softbank with Yahoo Inc. as a minor owner, announced in July that it would use Google’s search results instead of Yahoo’s (and then Bing’s when that partnership was implemented over the summer). Days later, Microsoft announced its intention to challenge the Google-Yahoo Japan deal. As a minority owner, Yahoo Inc. wasn’t able to block the agreement.

Depending on what measurement stats you look at, the deal means Google and Yahoo Japan now control somewhere in the neighborhood of 95% to 98% of the search market in Japan.

In our story from Tuesday, a Microsoft senior VP spoke out strongly against the partnership. Now, Silican Alley Insider received confirmation last night that the company will take steps to challenge it formally.

“We plan to present evidence to the Japanese FTC explaining why we believe that this deal is substantially more harmful to competition than Google’s deal with Yahoo in 2008 that the DOJ found to be illegal,” says a Microsoft rep.

Also reported in our story earlier this week is a Citi analyst saying that Google and Yahoo Japan combine for 95% of the search market share in Japan. Microsoft itself said this week that the two combine for 98% of the paid search market there.

According to a statement released by Yahoo it will “support” the deal as it is contractually bound to do:

Yahoo! Japan announced that it has chosen to implement Google as its backend algorithmic search engine and paid search infrastructure. Yahoo! Japan made this decision as an independent and separate publicly traded company, in which Yahoo! holds a 35% equity interest. We amended our agreement with Yahoo! Japan as a result of this decision, and we do not anticipate that this amendment will have a material financial impact on our revenues. We will provide support, as required by our agreement, for the search experience Yahoo! Japan has chosen for its business, and we will continue to partner closely with Yahoo! Japan in other areas including mail, messenger, mobile, our content properties and more.

This decision by Yahoo! Japan does not impact the global rollout and implementation of the Yahoo! search alliance with Microsoft, except in the Japanese market. We remain confident in our transition plans for the search alliance, are driving innovation in the user experience around search on the Yahoo! network, and continue to be committed to our alliance with Microsoft.

This is significant because, according to comScore, Japan is the third largest search market after the US and China:

Needless to say this is somewhat embarrassing to Yahoo and frustrating as well as it and partner Microsoft are rolling out their search integration. Kara Swisher speculates that Microsoft may try and convince Japanese regulators to block the Yahoo Japan-Google deal:

In any case, if Yahoo Japan and Google do buddy up, it’s clear that Microsoft will likely try to block the deal from gaining regulatory approval in Japan, much in the same way it did successfully when Google tried to enter into a deal with Yahoo in the U.S. in 2008.

Postscript: Here’s an official statement attributed to Brad Smith, Microsoft senior vice president and general counsel, which indicates Microsoft will try to stop it:

“This agreement is even more anticompetitive than Google’s deal with Yahoo! in the United States and Canada that the Department of Justice found to be illegal.  The 2008 deal would have locked up 90 percent of paid search advertising.  This deal gives Google virtually 100 percent of all searches in Japan, both paid and unpaid.  It means there will be no search competition in Japan and that Google will end up controlling all personal search information for all Japanese consumers and businesses.”

Postscript II: Mark Mahaney of Citi provided some additional detail and color in a note following the Yahoo Japan earnings call earlier today:

At a press conference announcing its first-quarter earnings, Yahoo! Japan (YJ) stated that it will switch over to using Google within the year. As key context, YJ is a separate, independent company, although Yahoo! does own a 35% stake. Further, YJ has approximately 57% share of the Japan Search market, while Google currently has about 38%.

Additional Key Details – Most terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but the length has been reported to be 2 years, with a 2 year extension option. Also, YJ stated in a press release that it had consulted with Japan’s Fair Trade Commission prior to concluding the deal. In announcing the deal, YJ management stated that a key factor behind the decision was its view that Microsoft’s Japanese language Search technology was not sufficiently strong enough for its needs.

The idea that Yahoo Japan had previously consulted with regulators suggests that Microsoft may not be able to block the deal. However the combination of 57 (YJ) and 38 percent (Google) search market share means that Google would effectively control 95 percent of search in Japan. That seems like a dealbreaker and would be in the US or EU.