If German Homes Can Now Opt Out Of Google, Then How About People?

Google made their "opt out of street view" service live in Germany August 17, giving select Germans until September 15 to exclude their properties from being mapped when the Street View service launches.

The function will be available for a limited time in the 20 cities that are mentioned which includes Berlin, Dresden and Hamburg and then extend to all cities covered as Google Maps Germany rolls out. Allowing private citizens to mass opt out of certain Google search functions is unprecedented until now. Why not give people the option to opt out of search entirely? After all, a hypothetical "Opt out" or rather "Do not index these pages I swear are about me and harmful" is considerably less far-fetched a privacy solution than Erick Schmidt's suggestion that people change their names. Bear in mind that there is no specific German law forcing Google to do this, and buildings, experts have assessed, do not count as person-related data in Germany. The general privacy greyzones of the strict German Bundesdatenschutzgesetz (Federal Data Protection Act) and the fact that German citizens and the newspaper BILD are up in arms over the risk that their data will be used maliciously pressured the search giant into providing this special service.