Following a bunch of other countries, it looks like Switzerland is the latest to freak out over Google Street View and to ban it, just a week after it was introduced. Google is apparently surprised by this move, noting that it had been talking to the Swiss gov’t and had a bunch of privacy safeguards in place, which seemed to be working. Of course, you have to ask, are there surveillance cameras in Switzerland? If so, why is that okay when Google’s Street View is not? Surveillance cameras are real-time. Street View is not. Surveillance cameras do not blur faces/license plates. Street View does. Why is one allowed and the other not? Of course, given how many local gov’ts have freaked out about Street View, it does make you wonder why Google would launch it these days without first having assurances from the gov’t that it would be okay.

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