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News

• Google Maps nears first deadline on China requirement

  Google has yet to apply for the necessary state license to operate its online mapping service in China, putting another Google product in jeopardy as the first deadline looms.

• Berlin court rules Street View doesn't invade privacy

  Google won a civil lawsuit in Germany lodged by a woman who contended its roving camera cars that shoot photographs for Street View violated her privacy.

• Google fined 100K euros for Street View collection of Wi-Fi data

  Google must pay a fine of €100,000 ($US142,000) for the unauthorized collection of information about the location of Wi-Fi hotspots in France by its Street View cars, France's National Commission on Computing and Liberty (CNIL) has ordered.

• Swiss court to issue ruling on Google Street View

  A Swiss court is considering a request from the country's data protection commissioner that Google should manually blur people's faces in its Street View imagery application rather than use automated technology.

• Connecticut may sue Google over Wi-Fi data request

  Google has missed a deadline set by the Connecticut Attorney General's Office for turning over data that it says was collected inadvertently by its Street View cameras.

• Microsoft nabs OpenStreetMap founder

  As part of an initiative to leverage the OpenStreetMap project for its own Bing Maps, Microsoft has hired OSM founder Steve Coast, the company announced Tuesday.

• Street View goes live in Germany with blurred images

  Google gingerly launched a select set of Street View images for Germany on Tuesday, a country where it has faced some of the most fierce opposition to the imagery application.

• Spain moves to fine Google over Street View

  The Spanish Data Protection Agency is preparing to fine Google over infractions against local data protection laws when it collected Wi-Fi data as part of its Street View service, it said in a statement on Monday.

• Experts give preliminary OK to Facebook Places

  Pressed to respond to the rising popularity of online services that let people broadcast their location, Facebook mostly hit the right notes with the initial design of Places, although it's too early to declare the service will be a sure success, according to several experts.

• German regulators welcome street panorama privacy law draft

  German privacy regulators have welcomed a proposal to extend laws protecting Germans' right to privacy to cover use of their own image and that of their homes in online street panoramas, the Hamburg privacy regulator said Monday.