Japanese Have Privacy Concerns About Google Street View

One of the challenges for Google is to honor local customs and regional laws. What may be accepted in one country can be highly offensive to citizens of another nation. In Japan, there is a growing protest movement against Google’s Street View project:

“A group of Japanese journalists, professors and lawyers demanded Friday that the US Internet search giant Google scrap its “Street View” service in Japan, saying it violates people’s privacy.

Google launched Street View in the US last year, providing pictures of panoramic all-around street-level views at locations on its online maps.”

link: Japanese protest against Google Street View

Google has to be sensitive to this and other nations’ concerns. Japan, for example, means millions and millions of daily advertising clicks. It is a demographic that Google cannot afford to antagonize as it catalogues the world’s information.

Catherine Forsythe