Google Street View Spreads To Europe?

By Doug Caverly - Fri, 09/28/2007 - 13:37

Four days ago, Google’s Global Privacy Counsel wrote a blog post about Street View and respecting other countries’ laws. At the time, we believed his comments were directed at Canada. But they may also apply to England; what appears to be one of Google Street View’s camera cars has been sighted in London.

Sergio Gasparrini, Dvorak Uncensored’s London correspondent, deserves credit for the capture. His picture shows a black Volkswagen Beetle with a camera tripod strapped on top. Unfortunately, the picture’s rather blurry, so some conclusions just can’t be drawn.

If, for example, we could see whether the car was left- or right-hand drive, we might get an idea of Google’s commitment to Street View overseas. A right-hand drive Beetle would likely have been purchased in Europe and meant to stay in Europe. A left-hand drive car could have been shipped from the U.S., and might return again in short order.

Pictures of the car’s license plates or tags might yield similar hints, but alas, they’re not available.

In any case, it looks like part of London is getting the Street View treatment, and we’ll be sure to keep an eye out for further developments. Google was not available for comment on the matter.

News Tags: Google, Europe, London, Street View

About the author:
Doug is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest eBusiness news.

7 Comments

By Guest (WPN reader) - Thu, 03/19/2009 - 15:17

google camera car in

google camera car in worcestershire march 1st

By Brian Norman (WPN reader) - Fri, 10/17/2008 - 12:24

London street views now live!

Forget google we have london street views now on our maps, read the blog:

http://www.earthware.co.uk/blog/index.php/2008/10/london-uk-street-level-views-now-live-but-not-from-google/

By MeMyself&I (WPN reader) - Sun, 10/19/2008 - 11:55

London is already live

Brian Norman's correct. You can already tour the streets of London virtually at www.seety.co.uk. However, having used the service at this site, I look forward to Google's offerings. The server on the Seety end is probably getting a lot of traffic right now; clicking from image to image is slow-going. Also, the imagery is low resolution like some of Google's imagery in the U.S. (i.e. that in Los Angeles), so if you enlarge the pictures, they're a little blurry.

Still, it's satisfying my craving to "see" London from my computer chair in the States. With the economy going down the tubes, I may not be able to visit there any time soon. Hopefully, Seety's and Earthware's street view mapping will be useful for Londoners and those visiting .... for real. I certainly like how you can click where you want to view from a large map. Other non-Google street view sites, like mapjack.com, everyscape.com and locaview.com (Japanese) provide very limited views of the maps, forcing you to do much more scrolling than you should have to.

By rob teale (WPN reader) - Thu, 10/02/2008 - 08:02

car in coventry

it was only a few weeks ago a black car with google writen on the sides with that big set of 360 cameras was in coventry it drove up and down a culdeesac i was in. i knew what it was so i made sure i had my photo taken!!!loli stood outside all the time

By Guest (WPN reader) - Fri, 08/08/2008 - 16:28

streetview

Yes I saw the black car with the big camera on top today, seems to me they have started from the bottom and will finish in Scotland.It is a great feature to use on the maps & earth, and it might make a few people "famous" like google earth did!. Driving up and down the country,rather them than me...They've done the US!!

By Panorama'niak (WPN reader) - Thu, 04/10/2008 - 06:25

StreetView in Europe

It seems obvious Google is not going to limit its streetview feature to the US and north american continent.

I have also seen a Swiss company advertising for streetview capability in Europe, on their website dedicated to 360° photo and video, where they claim they are capturing 360° streetview in Switzerland. May worth it to check out there regularly.

By Sergio Gasparrini (WPN reader) - Wed, 10/03/2007 - 05:37

Google Street View London

I actually talked with the guys that were driving the car and they told me that Paris has already been done. The car had the steering wheel on the right hand side. I can provide you with a higher quality picture where you can see it.