Search giant Google has said it will increase the amount of time Germans have in order to opt out of the company’s Street View feature.
Google vice president for Northern and Central Europe Philipp Schindler said in a statement last week Germans will now have eight weeks in order to request their homes be deleted from the service.
“We were aware of the fact that Street View could lead to discussions in Germany,” Schindler said.
The decision was praised by justice minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, who said “it is good that Google has doubled the time for objections to restore lost trust.”
German privacy officials have been targetting Google over privacy concerns after it the Street View car debacle earlier this year.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
COMMENTS
SmartCompany is committed to hosting lively discussions. Help us keep the conversation useful, interesting and welcoming. We aim to publish comments quickly in the interest of promoting robust conversation, but we’re a small team and we deploy filters to protect against legal risk. Occasionally your comment may be held up while it is being reviewed, but we’re working as fast as we can to keep the conversation rolling.
The SmartCompany comment section is members-only content. Please subscribe to leave a comment.
The SmartCompany comment section is members-only content. Please login to leave a comment.