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Famously, privacy laws have made it difficult for Google to roll out its Street View service in Germany. The country is not completely missing from Street View however; some urban areas seem to be at least partially included. E.g. when I look at Köln (Cologne), about 50% of streets in the city center are now included, and in Berlin the percentage looks even higher.

Is this an indication that the coverage of Germany is growing, and can be expected to be similar to other European countries in a few years? Or is the inclusion of some areas due to local authorities opting in, but the country as a whole still resisting?

a guest
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Most of the urban Google Street View coverage in Germany is quite old, not new; for example, the coverage of the Alexanderplatz in central Berlin is from 2018, as you can see from the "image capture" date shown on the screen when you load it up. Due to the high number of image blurring requests from German residents, Google has historically been quite reluctant to invest in increasing their coverage there.

However, according to the "where we're headed" section of the Street View explore page, Google is expecting to take new coverage in several German Länder over the next couple of years, and this imagery should eventually start to appear in the landscape. Presumably this is due at least in part to the fact that several of their competitors have captured and show street imagery and Google wishes to catch back up.

mlc
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Is this an indication that the coverage of Germany is growing, ...

For Berlin: no.

The images were taken in the summer of 2008 and (at least in my area) have not changed.

The image below shows the 'end of the line' for that street. From that point on and at the intersection going left to the next main intersection there is no coverage at all.

Going to right, it continues showing shops and restaurants that have been gone for over 10 years.

I have seen the Streetview auto in this area at least 2 times collecting data.

No idea if they are actualy taking images for Sreetview. If they are, they are not being published.

Mark Johnson
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