Google Earth street view question. Way OT

[Carl R]

I've found it's possible to tour certain European countries with Google Earth's street views - UK, Spain, France, Italy - and see high resolution images. However street views in the US and Japan are low resolution. Japan suprised me given their passion for photograpy and high quality cameras. Does anyone know why the US and Japan aren't up to European standards? Carl

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[PhillipM]

One thing I've read is privacy issues causing Google to blur people and vehicle tags. Perhaps to accomplish this they just low res the whole photo.

[Alaskan]

There are several countries that have put a stop to street view as it infringes on peoples privacy.

Some of the US areas are high rez, so it may be a function of what camera was used at the time.

[JGaynor]

I have only seen a short clip of a New York City street scene. The resolution seemed Ok but there was a bus between the camera and the business I was looking for when the picture was taken.

Japan, on the other hand, went totally BullS>>> (not surprisingly). It seems Google used vehicles that had digital cameras mounted on a little stalk as they cruised up and down the streets. The stalk was so high that in many cases it peeredd over the fences and betrayed a certain amount of disorder in the property owner's back yards, underware on the clothes line etc. At any rate the Japanese govt took major unbrage at this terrific loss of face inflcted on their population and insisted Google shut it down or do it over (with lower cameras).