244,000 Germans Say ‘No’ to Google’s Street View

Internet giant Google says more than 244,000 Germans have asked that their homes be made unrecognizable in its Street View program, scheduled to launch in Germany next month, AP reports.

Google estimates the requests amount to about 3 percent of the population of Germany’s 20 largest cities, images of which are to go online as part of the company’s mapping program.

German authorities demanded that Google allow citizens to request the homes not be pictured in Street View, insisting that posting images of private residences on the Internet violated individual privacy.

Street View is currently available in 23 countries. Germany is the only one where citizens could request their homes be removed before the program went online.