[SZW]

The eggs are the exception, I think. With 250k people having opted out, and the article speaking of 'some homes in Essen'... it probably were some youths high on googlemania - a local thing. Though I suppose others may follow - copycats.

[JustinSeriously]

"some youths high on googlemania - a local thing"

Is this really a thing in Germany? That's the weirdest part of this whole story, that kids would care that much about an international corporation like Google. It'd be like getting in a fight with someone because they didn't drink Coke.

[ugh]

It’s a bit baffling to me, too, but there are some voices on the web which feel very strongly about that whole Street View thing one way or another. The sentiment that opting-out is very narrow minded definitely exists. It also looks like this is an isolated case, so all it takes is one or two people taking that sentiment too far.

Just to give you an idea of the discourse at the moment, there was for example this blogger who proposed uploading geotagged photos (publishing those is, after all, legal if maybe morally questionable) of the blurred buildings which will then appear on Google Maps and Street View [0]. That idea found quite a few supporters and was also controversially discussed.

[0] http://mspr0.de/?p=1767 (German)