http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/23/technology/google-privacy-inquiries-get-little-cooperation.html

Timeline: Google Street View

May 5, 2007

Google introduces Street View, a technology showing 360-degree photographs from street level, in five cities in the United States. The project immediately draws criticism from privacy advocates.

http://maps.google.com/intl/en/help/maps/streetview/learn/where-is-street-view.html

May 12, 2008

Google announces that it has begun using face-blurring technology for its images of Manhattan. It eventually applies the technology to all locations.

http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2008/05/street-view-revisits-manhattan.html

July 8, 2008

Street View is introduced at its first location in Europe: along the Tour de France route.

http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2008/07/tour-tour-de-france-with-street-view.html

October 2008

Residents of Molfsee, a town in Germany, protest Google's plan to photograph the community for Street View by posting signs depicting a Google

Street View car crossed out by a red line. Google leaves the town out of its database.

April 2009

Residents of Broughton, England, block local streets to prevent a Street View car from entering. Google returns to photograph the town at a later date.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bENbFNIIFhk

May 20, 2009

Johannes Caspar, a German data protection official, threatens Google with "unspecified sanctions" if the company does not change its Street View project to conform with German privacy laws, which prohibit the dissemination of photos of people or their property without their consent.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/technology/companies/20google.html

July 2009

German officials drop their objections to Street View after Google says it will hide details of faces, license plates and house numbers, and give citizens the option of removing their property entirely from the 360-degree photo archive.

November 2009

A Swiss official demands that Google publicize where its cars will be at least one week in advance, position its cameras lower so they cannot see over fences, and improve the technology it uses to blur faces and license plates. A court eventually rules that Google must make these changes.

April 30, 2010

Regulators in several German states renew objections to Street View, after learning that Google has been recording the location of wireless routers. A Google spokesperson defends the practice, which can be used to improve services like location-based advertising for mobile phones.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/30/technology/30google.html

May 14, 2010

Google acknowledges it has systematically collected private data flowing over unencrypted Wi-Fi networks, prompting anger from European officials and privacy advocates.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/wifi-data-collection-update.html

May 19, 2010

In the United States, the co-chairman of the Congressional Privacy Caucus ask the Federal Trade Commission if Google's data collection related to Street View broke United States law.

May 20, 2010

German prosecutors open a criminal investigation into Street View and demand that the company surrender a hard drive from one of the Street View cars. Under German law, a conviction for illegal data-gathering carries a two-year prison sentence or a fine.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/20/business/global/20google.html

Oct. 21, 2010

Google says 244,000 people in Germany asked to have images of their houses and apartments removed from Street View maps.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/21/technology/21google.html

Oct. 22, 2010

Google pledges to strengthen privacy and security practices, and says it has appointed Alma Whitten as the company's director of privacy for engineering and product management.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/creating-stronger-privacy-controls.html

Oct. 27, 2010

The Federal Trade Commission says it is satisfied with the steps the company had taken to prevent a recurrence of the problems with Street View. It announces that it has ended its investigation of the project.

Nov. 16, 2011

Google agrees to give people around the world the option of keeping the names and locations of their personal or business Wi-Fi routers out of a company database, largely due to pressure from regulators in the Netherlands.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9503EED7143EF935A25752C1A9679D8B63

April 15, 2012

The Federal Communications Commission charges that Google has "deliberately impeded and delayed" the agency's investigation into Street View's data collection, and orders a $25,000 fine on the company.