Google’s occasionally controversial Street View product is heading outside of the United States.
Google Street View cars have been spotted in the United Kingdom in September and in Canada, where the privacy aspects of Google capturing street images resulted in a lot of talk as to whether it was legal or not to walk down the a street in Toronto, take a picture and post it on the internet.
Australia looks likely to be the 4th Google territory with a Google Street View car spotted in Sydney, according to the SMH. Google Australia spokesman Rob Shilkin confirmed the sighting, saying that the images taken will be added to Google Maps some time next year.
The Street View program has not been without its critics in the United States as well, particularly when Google has shown pictures of people entering adult book stores and doing other things they’d rather not have on the internet.
Google Maps Street View competes with Microsoft’s Streetside and startup Everyscape, the latter also taking pictures inside of buildings as well as from the outside.
image credit: SMH/ Sebr on Flickr)