The battle to protect peoples privacy on the Internet is not limited to the oppressive countries, who's governments are trying to see all that their users are doing. The government isn't even the cause for concern this time for German residents. Google is currently working on bringing Google Street view to Germany, and with it, pictures of everyones house, business, and in some cases, pictures of the people themselves.
The German government has even made a stand. Google turned over data they collected during the street view sweep to the government, in addition to allowing Germans to opt-out of their street view program. This is the first time Google has allowed people to opt-out of their street view program, before the view was made live.
Interesting to note is the number of people who did opt out, about 2.8% of the German population. While there was a big deal about Google gathering this data, it appears that not too many actually are worried about the data going live.
But Google has done the right thing, giving people the option to opt out of the information gathering they are doing, allowing for more privacy for those who want it.
Although that does not deal with the information google "accidentally" collected off of unsecured wi-fi points. A criminal investigation is pending.
Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/21/technology/21google.html?_r=1&ref=technology
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