Google Street View is raising massive amounts of controversy in the UK. Home owners and celebrities are worried about their personal privacy and today for the very first time a Google representative addressed these concerns while being interviewed live on GM.TV. So what is all the fuss about and is our privacy really being infringed?


Google Street Views is a new generation of 3d mapping service which has been integrated into the existing Google Maps and Google Earth systems. It allows users to virtually walk or drive down a 3d photographic representation of a road. Street view was launched in the US over 2 years ago and the service has just rolled out in the UK. It’s important to point out that less than 1% of the UK’s roads have currently been mapped by the service and Google Street View will only be able to map public roads, so the service will only show the view a member of the public would be able to see if they were to actually drive down the road itself. The images are not live, they are a combination of static photographs which have been stitched together to give the impression of a 3d environment. Google plan to update the service every 2 years.





Liam Gallagher, of Rock Band Oasis, was spotted outside a London pub in Regent’s Park Road. The 36-year-old singer looked to be wearing sunglasses, a dark t-shirt, shorts and black glasses. The original image of Liam, where he is seen pointing at the camera, has now been removed by Google but a second image is still available to view. Gallagher can be seen on Google Street View by typing 49 Regent’s Park Road, London into www.maps.google.co.uk


Liam Gallagher was spotted on the new web service by Craig Cooper, 45. He said: “If there’s one man you’d recognise having a pint it’s Liam Gallagher. He’s quite often in the Queens. He must be the most high-profile celebrity to be caught on Google Street View.”


A spokesman for the band has acknowledged that the sighting could “very possibly” be Liam Gallagher. He remarked that the star and his brother were both “stuck in London doing nothing” in June around the time the image was taken and after England failed to qualify for the Euro.


Privacy International has put forward a formal complaint to the Information Commissioner about the service invading people’s privacy. Google automatically blurs all the faces of people caught on the images and offers a removal service where users can report and request removal from the service.


Writen by Creative SEO, Search Engine Marketing Agency