2011年柏林一家法庭宣判谷歌街景没有违法。作出这个判决是因为有公民控告谷歌，指出谷歌街景侵犯了其财产和隐私权。Sebastian Huempfer回顾了这个案例。
谷歌在2009年5月宣布会将谷歌街景（Street View）这个街道图像服务扩展到德国的二十个主要城市。在公众和来自政治的压力之下，谷歌和德国当局合作，给予住户退出并把他们在地图上的房产模糊掉的选择。当街景服务推出之后，244,000个德国家庭选择了退出。退出的程序受到一个名为“科技审查机构”的组织监督，它的角色是确保德国消费品的安全性。
2011年3月，一个柏林法庭判决认为谷歌街景没有违法。作出这个决议是因为一位公民控告谷歌，指出谷歌街景侵犯了她的财产和隐私权。她说尽管她的房子被一个两米高的围墙遮住，那些挂在三米高的镜头让谷歌可以拍摄到她的财物。谷歌则指出，德国对它的街景服务没有设置法律障碍。
到了2011年末，大众的关注和议论已经大致平息。只有80,000个家庭退出了微软的必应街景（Bing Streetside）服务。根据谷歌的统计，德国是使用它们街景服务最多的国家。在街景服务推出之后，谷歌地图的用量增加了25%。不过除了最初的20个城市以外，谷歌没有再扩展它的服务，2008年之后也没有更新建筑的图像（这些建筑有的已经不复存在）。
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Two comments from Viktor-Mayer Schoenberger at our event “Does Facebook Know To Much?:
— Many of those who objected did so because they feared that criminals would use Street View to find promising targets for burglaries.
— VMS argued that by obscuring your house, you send a signal that you are a promising target because you have something to hide. Hence, his important point is that EVEN IF YOU OPTED OUT, you were still forced to send a message to users of Street View – even if it’s just “I don’t like this”. Is this justifiable?
I would still argue that the right to opt out is a reasonable and sufficient concession. Given that 250 000 people opted out, I don’t think any of them sent a clear signal of any kind – there are just too many different but conceivable motives: some opted out because of burglars, some because they don’t want to be profiled, some because they built fences in the real world and thus want them online as well, and so on.
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Here’s the link to the live-blog and video of the event with Richard Allan (Director for Public Policy in Europe, Facebook) and VMS (Author of Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age): http://freespeechdebate.com/en/2012/02/facebook-privacy-and-you-live/