Germans Egg Houses Over Homes Opting Out of Google Maps Street View

by hearit

Things just get stranger with Google Maps and the country of Germany--even more odd than the naked guy photographed while getting out of his car’s trunk, sent to Street View. German residents now egg one anothers’ houses over Google--angry over those opting out of Google's maps plan.
 
Vandals have taken after some Germans whom elected to have their homes removed from the Google Maps Street View service—throwing eggs at the houses and leaving those ‘egged’ houses with notes reading "Google's cool."
 
Apparently, either toilet paper was not available -- or eggs are the only acceptable German version of harassment.
 
Google swears it’s got nothing to do with the egg vandalism running rampant on the German land.
 
Privacy has been a big concern for German citizens--many of whom argued against the Google Maps focused street shots: in exchange for being allowed to add Germany’s streets to its maps service, Google’s barter included one concession in particular: German citizens were allowed to opt out of the Street View service, but only before the maps service actually went online and officially launched in November. Roughly 3 percent of Germans did opt out of having their homes photographed and added to Google Maps, because of privacy concerns.
 
While no other country has been allowed to entirely opt out of the Google Maps Street View images--as at least 240,000 Germans chose to do—many U.S. homeowners are unaware that more can be deleted from those images than currently meets the eye: while most U.S. homes are now included in Street View, Google will alter existing images of Street View photographs to respect U.S. privacy--including the blur of cars, people and even homes themselves.