Google has a fleet of automobiles that shoot pictures of every house on the planet without an opt-in and is planning eye-glasses that record everything that a person will see and upload it to google — yet Eric Schmidt worried about individuals having that same personal power.
My inner cynic says Google has already collected aerial and street level photography at great expense. Thus it is in their best interests to keep the barrier of entry high for competitors, leading to their desire to suppress any technology that can recreate their mapping imagery at a lower cost.