... maps-related blog writes, This effort has been a year in the making " working at Street View-scale is a tough challenge that required us to advance state-of-the-art automatic face detection, and we continue working hard to improve it as we roll it out for our existing and future imagery. (Google already uses face recognition technology in Google images, by the way " just tick faces in the advanced options.)

Blurring faces to protect peoples privacy seems to make sense. Just last year, Google defended showing these pictures, but they might have changed their mind based, perhaps based on feedback. Google may also have further analyzed the legal situation around the world in preparation for rolling out Street View in more countries " their camera-equipped cars have been spotted in Italy and France, for instance. And who knows, perhaps Google will be able to expand this obfuscation to car license plates in the future. While blurring takes away some fun (hey, its my neighbor in a funny pose posted all over the web!) it also takes away many potential problems (hey, its me in a funny pose posted all over the web!!).

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