Google has debuted Street View in Germany with 3 percent of the houses blurred out, as requested.
In August, Google gave Germans a month to opt their houses out of Street View amidst privacy concerns. Out of a total of 8,458,084 households, Google said it received 244,237 opt-outs, or approximately 2.89 per cent of households.
As demonstrated by a view from the small town of Oberstaufen, imagery with homes blurred out are now live, as reported by Search Engine Land. Google plans to extend Street View to 20 German cities by year's end, including Munich, Berlin, Hamburg, Nuremburg, and Düsseldorf.
Google started with Oberstaufen because it was invited there. "For several months, the people of Oberstaufen, along with the mayor and the local tourist board have publicly invited us to put their town on the map so they can show it off to the world," Wieland Holfelder, director of engineering at Google Germany, wrote in a blog post.
Google also published a special preview of certain locations in Germany before the full roll-out, including Königsplatz in Munich, Castle Solitude in Stuttgart, the Köhlbrandbrücke in Hamburg or the stunning Semper Opera building in Dresden, along with the Zwinger Palace and the Imperial Church.
Google Street View, a 360-degree photographic mapping tool, is one of the company's more controversial products. Although its cameras are present in all seven continents, even Antarctica, not everyone has embraced it. In September, the Czech Republic succeeded in banning Google Street View from expanding outside of Prague.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt made headlines during a CNN interview recently when he suggested that people who didn't like Street View could "just move." He later said he had "misspoke." Check out PCMag's list of six unconventional ways you can hide from Google Street View.
Editor's Note This story was updated at 3pm Eastern time with additional comment from Google.
Additional reporting by Chloe Albanesius