European Union Data Protection Supervisor Peter Hustinx told news media that "making pictures everywhere is certainly going to create some problems." He works with national authorities in Europe to establish policies for data protection and privacy, and added that he thinks Google will take the EU's concerns into account in future versions, perhaps limiting the kinds of images available online.

Blurring Faces

If Google does compromise, it won't be the first time it has modified its attempts to photograph the Earth to accommodate a government agency. In March, it was asked by the U.S. Defense Department to remove some images of U.S. military bases.

Google's Street View service , first introduced last year, is not yet available outside the U.S., so the EU's concerns are preventive. The images are obtained from specially equipped vehicles that capture panoramic images of streets.

In addition to the Europeans and the U.S. military, privacy advocates such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation have asked for a little less information. According to news reports, Google will comply with some of those requests, such as beginning this week to blur faces according to a facial-recognition algorithm. New York City will be the first to get this anonymity, and then it will be expanded to the other 40 cities in Street View.

Not Yet Perfect

The rollout of the blur machine will take a few months. This is fortunate, since Google spokesperson Larry Yu has noted that the algorithm is not yet at the level of perfection Google expects when it is deliberately smudging photos of daily life.

The software tends to go overboard, so to speak, and blurs too many things. But Yu said, in effect, that it's better to over-blur than under-blur, adding that the blurring is part of Google's plan to head off regulatory efforts, such as from the EU.

There have been reports of more mundane, and perhaps more embarrassing, violations of privacy. According to news accounts, one image captured a man leaving a San Francisco strip club who apparently had reasons not to be seen there. Other images have captured sunbathers who were rather casual about their attire.