I don't think they were forced. Google is based in the U.S. where it is legal to photograph people in public, yet Google still blurs the faces of those on sidewalks. That and things like license plates seems to me to be them preemptively trying to appease privacy concerns so that support to censor them legally doesn't form.
Not in the US at least. Expectation of privacy is an element of the test for determining whether a government search subject to the Fourth Amendment has occurred. As such, it only applies to government actors, not private parties like Google. And in any case, there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in a public place such as a road.