liberty central's civil liberties villain of the week: Google
Google's new Street View service has launched in the UK amid criticism that it invades users' privacy, with the company already forced to remove some offending images.
While potentially providing a useful service to some, Dr Ian Brown, a privacy expert at the Oxford Internet Institute, points out that Google should have "thought more carefully about how [it] designed the service".
This follows privacy concerns about the company's recently launched personal tracking system, Latitude.
Google's Ed Parsons said both the Information Commissioner's Office and the police had been consulted about privacy concerns. "We recognise that there have been concerns about [privacy] and we think we have addressed those concerns," he said.
Do you think Street View is a "portal to an Orwellian nightmare"?
Nominate your civil liberties villain for the week in the comments below.