Google Street View to Go Indoors

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Apple may be developing a new 3-dimensional map model of the world, but Google is focusing on taking street-level photos of actual establishments and places by extending street view to indoor locations.

Google Street View is a useful tool for checking out how places look, to the extent of getting a 360-degree preview right within your browser. It’s also an oft-criticized application because of privacy implications and how crooks are already using the technology to stake out their targets for burglaries.

But Google is going a step further, by introducing Street View for indoor locations. The new feature will involve taking 360-degree shots from within public places like shops, restaurants and buildings, in an effort to showcase these buildings’ interiors.

The new feature will launch with London as the pilot city, and will extend to other cities within the U.S., Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Because of potential privacy issues, Google says that inclusion in the new Street View extension will be on a voluntary basis. “We hope to enable businesses to highlight the qualities that make their locations stand out through professional, high quality imagery,” a spokesperson said.

Street View for the indoors will exclude “big-brand chains,” though, and will also exclude hospitals and law firms, where privacy is essential. Still, establishment owners can submit their own photos, which they will still own. Images taken by Google’s panoramic cameras will be owned by the search company. Google is currently inviting establishments to be part of the new program, although there is no exact plan on when the indoors Street View images will go live.

Google Maps is the company’s third most popular application, after Search and Gmail. Street View launched in 2007 amid criticism over privacy issues, particularly in some European jurisdictions, although the company has been working to improve privacy, such as blurring faces and license plate numbers.