Last but not least: Google Street View near Ratingen not for free
Ratingen wants mileage allowance for Google Street View. This was decided by the Ratingen city council with a majority vote.
Will Google have to pay for Street View after all? Following a number of complaints about data protection against the internet company, the Ratingen city council has now decided to charge the internet company 20 euros for every kilometer photographed. As it is not legally possible to prevent Google from photographing streets, the city is demanding a "special usage fee", similar to that charged for market stalls. This was announced by a spokesperson on Wednesday. This means that the internet company Google would have to pay the city of Ratingen near Düsseldorf a fee of 6180 euros for its 309 kilometers of municipal roads. However, the company rejected the claims on the grounds that the photographs for Street View were taken during regular road traffic. The drivers of the vehicles used to take the photos complied with the applicable road traffic regulations, said Lena Wagner, press spokeswoman for Google Germany, according to Zeit.de. As the vehicles were moving in regular road traffic within the framework of so-called public use and did not obstruct it, there was no special use.
