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Comment by User8712 | Hacker News Reader

Austria had a ban on Google street view cars due to privacy. That's why you see no street view anywhere in Austria. I think they removed the ban, but since then, Google hasn't exactly been in a hurry to send any cars that way.

It seems a little strange because I'd assume mapping Vienna, one of the world's more well known cities, would be of high importance. I wonder if they're now avoiding Austria on purpose, simply to send a message.

Edit: It looks like the ban was lifted in 2011. Three years later, and there's still no street view in Austria. I'm scratching my head on this one.

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When governments pass asinine laws like "Nobody can take photos in public except us," there are consequences. Maybe the citizens of Austria will think about why they don't have Street View coverage during the next election.

I feel pretty secure in predicting that not one vote will be swayed by the absence of Google Street View in Austria.

A little perspective is nice.

It's a general principle, not a specific one.

So Google is taking a principled stand against states which pass laws designed to protect the privacy of their citizens?

No, the principle is that you can have overreaching privacy protections or convenient geolocation features, but not both.

(That said, a3_nm's post indicates that this case had more to do with Google's collection of private data over WiFi than the photographs themselves. It's hypocritical for governments in the age of Snowden to criticize a private company for doing that, but at least it's understandable.)

There was no law passed in this setting, but a temporary ban specifically targeted at the Street view cars <http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gqQOUMhV0... in the wake of the discovery that they were collecting private wireless data, in order to investigate.

I do not live in Austria, but, in my opinion, this does not seem an entirely unreasonable reaction to that discovery. (Incidentally, I think I would be in favor of laws controlling the massive untargeted acquisition of information in public space, for privacy reasons... and I would not mind at all if this meant there was no Street view coverage in my country; quite the contrary.)

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