Street View On iOS Pierces German Privacy Veil

jfruhlinger writes "After some prickly negotiations with the German government's privacy regulators, Google got permission to launch its Street View service for German addresses, so long as people had the right to opt out and choose to have only a blurred version of their homes on the service. But it turns out that iPhone and iPad users can see those buildings after all."

Comments

Re:You've got it all wrong!

[laughingcoyote]

Honestly, my first question is, is it Google or the German government ignoring the law here? I'm not entirely familiar with German law, granted, and it does have some oddities, but I'm not certain under what legal theory an "opt out" right could be created. If I took a photo of some friends on a public street in Germany and posted it on a website, with a home in the background, would the homeowner have the right under German law to demand I blur the home or take down the photo? And if they wouldn't, what's the difference here? I know in the US and most countries with similar legal structures, photos taken from a public street of the street-facing part of a building are not presumed to be a violation of the right to privacy, as anyone walking down that street can see it. What's the significant difference here?