On one level, it’s the same knee-jerk reaction that happened when the service launched States-side.  A lot of stuff about “what if I’m captured coming out of X-place, or holding hands with Y”.  Well, here’s the news:  it won’t usually be Google StreetMaps that catches us out on those moments…

On another level, stories of people stopping or barricading the Google StreetMaps car have made people think there might be something more to this – and when Google move to countries where privacy is a bigger issue, what will happen then?

My take on this: privacy IS being eroded, on a daily basis, around the world.   That’s just a fact.  Google can blur as many faces as it wants, but I’m being tracked by cameras, URL tracking software, mobile/cellphone masts – and guess what, Google: my car, my branded van (if I had one), my house are all still personally identifiable.

Two things make this loss of privacy okay:

• The technology that comes with it (including StreetMaps) outweighs the risks by a seriously large factor
• There is SO MUCH DATA, that no-one and nothing can really do anything that worrying or invasive with it.  There’s too much of it being gathered, and most of it is never looked at.  At least for now, and in countries that don’t have some sort of evil regime in power…

It may be the fact that Google is doing it to make money, but essentially they’re just putting online what we can walk to on our own two legs and see for ourselves.  So let’s calm down, enjoy the benefits, and only go out at night with a hoodie pulled over our faces.

While I’m on the subject, a bit more TomTom – style “social” networking of real-time traffic information would be welcome.  GPS routing on my 3G blackberry, where they offer some real-time traffic info is poor (make one different turning and downloading the new roads takes too long to catch up).  RDS doesn’t really work, and waiting for radio traffic reports is really, really old now.

Social driving brings up all sorts of new networking opportunities (stuck in the same traffic jam?  Drive the same route to work each day?  Want to send insults to the driver in the car in front?) - which you’ll either hate or love, depending on your viewpoint.  Me, I’d like to know in real time the quickest way to get from A to B in real-time, and not make too many wrong turns along the way… Simple.