Munich. The controversial Internet service Google Street View went online on Thursday for 20 of the largest German cities. Munich is one of the cities now covered. Germany is the 27th country that joined the 3D map service from Google Maps.

The U.S. Internet giant might feel relieved now as no other country they have worked in has provided so much trouble making Street View as in Germany. The privacy protection issues have been brought up and fought for in Germany and they got an exception to the rule: not only faces and car signs are pixeled (presented unrecognizable) but sometimes whole houses.

In total there are 245,000 households who objected to their inclusion by Google. In Munich an estimated 20,000 households refused inclusion in Street View. This ironically also includes the office of the Google headquarters in Munich. The landlord apparently enforced his will against his tenant. The U.S. web guru Jeff Jarvis in his blog makes jokes about "Blurmany", the German pixel mania. On Twitter it has been mentioned as German "Google Street Burqa".