That represents a potential problem for Google.  The company’s automated blurring software catches most – but not all – faces and license plates.  Achieving 100 percent effectiveness could force Google to spend lots more money on the program.

Then one other potential sticking point includes an order to make people near sensitive establishments (such as schools and women’s shelters) completely unrecognizable, and the Swiss court wanted Google to advertise when and where Street View pictures will be taken, as well.

On the whole, that might be enough to convince Google to discontinue its Street View coverage of Switzerland.  The program remains more of a lark than a moneymaker, after all, leaving Google few good reasons to comply with the Swiss court’s demands.

Or, although no one’s committed to anything yet, there’s also a possibility that Google will try to appeal the case and bring it before the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland.

For the record, Google stated, “We are very disappointed because Street View has proved to be very useful to millions of people as well as businesses and tourist organizations.  More than one in four of the Swiss population has used it since the service launched in Switzerland.  We’ll now take some time to consider what this means for Street View in Switzerland and our appeal options.”

A big hat tip goes to GenevaLunch’s Ellen Wallace.

Street View was introduced in Switzerland about three months ago.  Roughly one week later, Thür











complained that certain faces and license plates weren’t indistinct enough.  He met with Peter Fleischer, Google’s Global Privacy Counsel, Google agreed to make portions of its photos blurrier, and the problem was resolved.  Or so we thought.

It turns out that Thür















also objected to the height from which images had been taken, arguing that a normal person wouldn’t have the same vantage point.  He felt that people in more rural areas could be identified even if their faces weren’t visible, too.

So, as announced in a formal statement, Thür



















"has decided to take the matter further and to take legal action before the Federal Administrative Court."  According to the BBC, Thür























wants a tribunal to make Google immediately take down all Swiss Street View images, as well (since the case won’t start or end soon).

This situation could have a big impact on how other countries respond to Street View in the future.

Related Articles:

> Google Street View Hits Hawaii, Mexico

> Street View Coverage Of Two More Countries Goes Live

> Street View: Soon With More Blurriness

To start, Google’s going to do a more thorough job of blurring the license plates visible in its photos of Switzerland.  It’s also due to take another shot at blurring Swiss citizens’ faces.  This should satisfy Commissioner Hanspeter Thür, since he and Peter Fleischer, Google’s Global Privacy Counsel, met to discuss the situation.

Then here’s a key point: Google’s going to revisit older Street View images and make the faces in them less distinct, too.  So the next time you research a route to any spot, whether it’s in the Alps or the middle of America, what you see may be markedly different.

This could cause Street View to be a bit less interesting, but it could also make a lot of objections to the program disappear.  That would be quite important, since Google must be tired of running into fresh complaints every time it releases new photos, and software tweaks tend to cost less than lawsuits.

The changes should start becoming visible over the next month or so.

In May of 2008, Google introduced face-blurring technology to Street View in an attempt to satisfy privacy groups.  The software does its best to make license plates illegible, too.  The problem is that it’s not entirely accurate, and Commissioner Hanspeter Thür happened upon some omissions on both fronts.

This isn’t necessarily the end of the line for Street View in Switzerland.  In fact, images of Switzerland are still available for everyone to see right now.

Going forward, the key thing is that Thür is supposed to meet with representatives of Google sometime this week in an attempt to sort something out.  It’s also important to note that Google is still pulling down specific images upon request, and Thür is aware of this fact.

Google can’t be thrilled that Street View has hit another speed bump, though.  International complaints seem to be adding up, with stories tied to Germany, Greece, and Japan all making headlines just within the past few months.

Switzerland, Taiwan, and Portual are the three main attractions (as you probably gathered from this piece’s title).  Interesting and even stunning views are available of each, with the image below showing off Grindelwald, Switzerland.

As for the odds and ends, Stephen Chau, a product manager, explained in a post on the LatLong Blog, "We took our Street View cars for spins around two race tracks in California: Thunderhill Raceway Park and Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca."

Chau then continued, "We’ve also used our Street View Trike, the new bicycle-based system, to gather imagery at San Diego State University and LEGOLAND California.  We’ve included a little surprise at LEGOLAND, which we hope you will enjoy!"  (That surprise – possible spoiler alert! – may or may not be the Lego Pegman.)

So there’s plenty of stuff to keep Street View fans busy.  And since it had been a while since the last time Google released any fresh Street View imagery, this morning’s update should prove especially welcome.

The new "Switzerland Tool" will reveal if a user’s network connection has any restrictions on it from ISPs.

"It’s up to concerned Internet users to investigate possible network neutrality violations, and EFF’s Switzerland software is designed to help with that effort," said Fred von Lohmann, EFF Senior Intellectual Property Attorney.

"Comcast isn’t the first, and certainly won’t be the last, ISP to meddle surreptitiously with its subscribers’ Internet communications for its own benefit."

Switzerland is an open source, command-line software tool designed to detect the modification or injection of packets o f data by ISPs. The tool detects changes made by software tools believed to be used by ISPs such as Sandvine and AudibleMagic, advertising systems like FairEagle, and a number of censorship systems.

The software is currently geared towards sophisticated Internet users, but the EFF said it plans to make the tool easier to use.

"Until now, there hasn’t been a reliable way to tell if somebody — a hacker, an ISP, corporate firewall, or the Great Firewall of China — is modifying your Internet traffic en route," said Peter Eckersley, EFF Staff Technologist and designer of Switzerland.

"The few tests available have been for narrow and specific kinds of interference, or have required tremendous amounts of advanced forensic labor. Switzerland is designed to make general-purpose ISP testing faster and easier."
 

 Operation Yodel
 (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

The move to Switzerland should take place within the next year and a half.  We suspect that some jobs will be cut in the process – portions of Yahoo Europe lived under the axe even before Microsoft’s offer – but official confirmation hasn’t been forthcoming.

The reasons behind the relocation also remain a bit mysterious.  swissinfo.ch writes, "Swiss media have reported that Yahoo will benefit from a special tax break in Switzerland.  Yahoo declined to comment on the reports."

Cost must be a major factor, however.  Several other companies have their headquarters in the same area, so it seems likely there’s some element relating to taxes, land, or people that is cheap.

Probably not trash-related services, though.  A bonus fun fact of the day, again provided by Wikipedia: "In many places in Switzerland, household rubbish disposal is charged for.  Garbage (except dangerous items, batteries etc.) will only be collected if it is in bags which either have a payment sticker attached, or in official bags with the surcharge paid when the bags are purchased."

Over the next 18 months, Yahoo plans to move five percent of their European workforce. They decided Switzerland, rather than London, should be the home for their Continental headquarters.

A statement appearing on Yahoo News confirmed the change in locale:

“Yahoo! Europe has begun a programme to relocate its European headquarters to Switzerland,” the company said in a statement.

“This decision is part of our ongoing international business strategy to increase competitiveness, deliver financial results, performance and efficiencies.”

It added: “Yahoo! Europe remains committed to maintaining a strong presence in all of its key markets in Europe.”

With Yahoo looking for cost savings and other ways of streamlining their operations, a move to Switzerland must fit into that line of thinking. We’re inclined to believe favorable corporate tax rates in Switzerland may have motivated this strategic move.

Dynadot, which controls the sites domain name was ordered by the court to," immediately clear and remove all DNS hosting records for the wikileaks.org domain name and prevent the domain name from resolving to the wikileaks.org website or any other website or server other than a blank park page, until further order of this Court."

The case was brought by lawyers representing the Swiss banking group Julius Baer. It involved a number of documents posted on the site that allegedly disclosed that the bank was connected to money laundering and tax evasion. The bank maintains the documents were posted to the site by the former vice president of its Cayman Island’s operations, Rudolf Elmer.

Julius Baer requested the documents to be taken down because they could affect the outcome of a  separate legal case in Switzerland. A document signed by Judge Jeffery White,ordered Dynadot to follow six court orders. The company was ordered to remove all records of the site from its servers and to produce,"all prior or previous administrative and account records and data for the wikileaks.org domain name and account."

The court also ordered that details of the site’s registrant, contacts, payment records and "IP addresses and associated data used by any person who accessed the account for the domain name" to be turned over.