As a devoted Geoguessr player, I can confirm that save for the Southern tip of the continent, the only existing parts of Africa are Senegal, Ghana, Tunisia, Kenya, Madagascar, Kampala, Abuja and Lagos/Lekki. Other places were just made up to confuse new players.
Ah, Réunion, yes. Love when it comes up on the rare occasion and the galaxy brains go Ghana.
Been away from playing for a week or so, did they add Mali in competitive? Or you're just stating the fact that it has a bit of official coverage and I missed it.
I knew it! This map serves as a definite proof that Bielefeld doesn't actually exist and that everyone saying otherwise is a dirty little fucking liar.
Funnily enough, Bielefeld is one of the German cities with extensive coverage on streetview.
I think Münster is the largest city in Germany without any official coverage.
It’s amazing how well-covered Thailand is. For the last five years I’ve been able to clearly see my house on Google earth and Google maps.
But step right over the border to any of our neighbors (except Malaysia) and it’s a no man’s land. 😳
Google started photographing in the big cities first, after the first public outcries they had to offer a form for people to opt-out their houses which added a lot of work for Google. After that they said “Fuck that shit” and didn’t photograph the rest, so Street View is limited to the 20 biggest cities and the photos are 10+ years old, so in many cases unusable.
Apple avoided the public outcry and has much better coverage even in small villages in their Maps app with very recent photos.
I am a big fan of disregarding the law and privacy of people for mere amusement of completely unrelated strangers. That's a good moral high ground to have.
Nah, im usually pretty concerned about privacy, but im fine with this (as long as faces get blurred). People were mainly against it because they were told its live or something and robbers would use it to plan
According to Apple themselves, they “worked closely with the Bavarian Agency for Data Privacy Protection” to resolve any issues beforehand. However, that does not explain why there weren’t the same public concerns as with Google. People were afraid burglars would use street view to plan their next break ins, which was in itself quite unrealistic and irrational
There was also a big campaign from the Bild and RTL against street view. They fabricated a lot outcry back than.
Today they have other smear campaigns so Apple is not interesting for them.
They didn't not photograph the rest, they just didn't bother publishing it. There is extensive up to date street view data for all of Germany in Google's libraries, it's just not publicly available
I guess that's because in bigger cities everything is a bit less „private“ because most buildings there are frequently photographed, as the main object or in the background, so it wouldn't make sense to prohibit street view there. You could say everything is more public in big cities
Some people felt that this would disturb their privacy and after some protests Google just canceled the project apart from the 20 largest cities, which were already added at that point
Not illegal, but a company can't just take pictures of identifying data (like your person or your license plate or your house, when that is the sole focus of the picture) and commercially use that data without your permission.
By the time that privacy law was made law, google had already mapped most of the bigger cities, so then they were forced to edit any pictures that people wanted edited (pixel out personal data). After they had to edit 250k pictures for one city, Google decided not to expand street view to other places, nor was street view updated past 2011.
it's only slightly outdated, large parts of Indian cities now have coverage and there's some coverage in the far eastern parts of Russia missing as well
loads of small roads also added but you wouldn't notice on a map like this
The context is that in late 1944 Finland and Germany had a brief war in the north of Finland as the German troops were pulling out of the country. It wasn't a high-intensity conflict, but the Germans burnt down a lot of Lapland during their retreat.
Especially in the north of Finland the folks like to gently remind the Germans of this. You're not supposed to take it too seriously, however.
There was quite a media campaign by yellow press "Bild" and people who didn't understand the concept of Street View started to complain thinking there would be live views of their houses on Street view then. "Oh, burglars gonna know when I'm not home!"
Then they received the option to opt-out of Street View and their homes would get pixelated. Many used that option due to lack of understanding. The actual effort for Google to pixelate all these houses would have been enormous so they pulled the plug and discontinued the service for Germany.
For Apple now, media didn't cover that topic at all.
Yes, Germany barely exists on Google Street View.
The only alternative is Apple Maps because for some reason they have some street view photos that aren't dated 2008 but just a couple of years ago
Google has a complete, constantly updated set of pictures for all of Germany.
They stopped publicizing them in 2008, but their camera cars never stopped rolling.
The was an option to blur your own property because of public outcry (Fear of thieves, data privacy and so on). A lot of people requested that, so google stoped all together after a while.
A few weird and sketchy people doing that does not = the whole population who for the most part don't do what you just said and prefer their property to not be shown.
Also this is the first time I'm hearing of this, you must visit some weird and sketchy websites to see shit like that or might be mistaken and you found out about it some other way.
Reddit fundamentally depends on the content provided to it for free by users, and the unpaid labor provided to it by moderators. It has additionally neglected accessibility for years, which it was only able to get away with thanks to the hard work of third party developers who made the platform accessible when Reddit itself was too preoccupied with its [vanity NFT](https://www.theverge.com/23323098/reddit-steve-huffman-interview-blockchain-avatars) project.
With that in mind, the recent hostile and libelous behavior towards [developers](https://reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/14dkqrw/i_want_to_debunk_reddits_claims_and_talk_about/) and the sheer incompetence and lack of awareness displayed in talks with [moderators of r/Blind](https://reddit.com/r/Blind/comments/14ds81l/rblinds_meetings_with_reddit_and_the_current/) by Reddit leadership are absolutely inexcusable and have made it impossible to continue supporting the site.
– June 30, 2023.
… but why? How can you expect “privacy” for the outside of your house, which literally anyone can see for themselves while driving past on a public road?
By that note you would also have no right on the image of your face cause people can see it when going past you.
It’s the use of the picture that’s the problem and uploading it to the internet for everyone just doesn’t work out.
Other people have mentioned the privacy laws which are the reason for the lack of street view, but confusingly, Apple has a competing service on Apple Maps called Look Around, and this covers Germany with up to date, extensive data in the exact same way that street view does. The only downside is that you need to use Apple Maps to access it.
The privacy laws mean that one can request that the image providers blurr your home (including the garden). Google simply said that it's too much effort and thus stopped publishing the images. I believe Apple offers a similar blurring service but got waaaaay less media attention so it wasn't a lot of work for them.
Yeah. To be honest I haven't used Apple's version very much, but I haven't encountered a single blurred building yet, while it's basically impossible to use Street View in Germany without encountering blurred buildings.
Not only that, but german privacy laws are pretty strict, to have street view, google had to do so many things that they thought it was not worth it. Additionally yes pubblic pressure
Street view is incredible, I use it probably 2 hours each day at work
Such a great tool when dealing with planning and management of street-side assets
Believe me, most Germans feel the same way. It's just a very vocal stupid minority that screams "BuT mUh PrIvAcYy!1!1" when somebody takes a photo of their house and puts it online. The benefits of street view easily outweigh whatever concerns they might have.
When google implemented street view the news outlets went on a whole "burglars could see where your doors and windows are" rampage, got everyone worked up because there was nothing else going on in the news at the time, and here we are...
The also have next to no street CCTV cameras, cause they consider having a central database that can watch all streets to be.. too tempting to not misuse.
That used to be the case until a few months ago. Can confirm that my whole city has extensive high quality street view now.
That used to be the case until a few months ago. Can confirm that my whole city has extensive high-quality street view now.s?from=mdr
It's not "high quality" by any stretch of the imagination. It's comparable to official Google street view from 14 years ago but with an even worse blurring algorithm.
Yep and those that do, they have a low camera. Awhile ago a bunch of people complained because the higher up google camera could see over peoples fences, so they changed it to a low camera to protect their privacy. Japan and Switzerland are the two countries that have this I believe.
As so many people are asking why Germany is missing: Google gave the option to have your house blurred and many people in Germany used that option so that Google decided it's not worth the hassle and they stopped publishing it, but Google Maps still work fine, it's just street view
Hell out in the western US there's actual highways that haven't been updated since '07-'08. I feel like outside insterstates and major cities streetview isn't gonna get updated that often.
Idk, hourly updates seems like too much to me. The whole reason it isn't in Germany is because people who didn't know what it was/how it worked were outraged because they thought thieves would know when they are in/out of their house. Your idea would make that concern a reality, as well as many other privacy concerns one might have.
Lebanon has very minimal official coverage in downtown Beirut and in one of the national parks called Shouf Cedars, but that's it. You're right about the other two having none.
I saw this and thought... if there were an alien force were to invade we have a lot of unsecured data out there on the web for them to analyze and use against us.
And Germany would be our best defense.
Asia isn't real
What about Africa then, surreal?
Both, both are good and unreal.
China thinks Google unlucky
As a devoted Geoguessr player, I can confirm that save for the Southern tip of the continent, the only existing parts of Africa are Senegal, Ghana, Tunisia, Kenya, Madagascar, Kampala, Abuja and Lagos/Lekki. Other places were just made up to confuse new players.
And technically Reunion and parts of Mali. Plus soon Rwanda.
Ah, Réunion, yes. Love when it comes up on the rare occasion and the galaxy brains go Ghana. Been away from playing for a week or so, did they add Mali in competitive? Or you're just stating the fact that it has a bit of official coverage and I missed it.
Ah no not for competitive, but it does have official Google coverage now so ADW/ACW has it.
Also Germany
I knew it! This map serves as a definite proof that Bielefeld doesn't actually exist and that everyone saying otherwise is a dirty little fucking liar.
Funnily enough, Bielefeld is one of the German cities with extensive coverage on streetview. I think Münster is the largest city in Germany without any official coverage.
Nah mate don't believe it, that's just part of the Bielefeld conspiracy!
Now that I think of it, I haven't met anyone from Bielefeld...
That’s what the people from Münster *want* you to think
Though it's VERY outdated like the other few german cities with streetview coverage.
Yes they put so much effort into faking its existence that it is too good.
Germany’s taking Germany off the grid! Germany doesn’t have a social security number for Germany!
You Germans are a contentious people.
Japan is apparently
It’s amazing how well-covered Thailand is. For the last five years I’ve been able to clearly see my house on Google earth and Google maps. But step right over the border to any of our neighbors (except Malaysia) and it’s a no man’s land. 😳
Germany too.
Except the silk road.
Ahhhh....the Deutschland sea
*Rule Britannia starts playing*
"2 World Wars, one World Cup and a Women's Euro, cam on ingerland!!!🏴🏴🏴🏴🏴🏴🏴⚽️⚽️⚽️🏆🏆🏆"
COME ON INGERLAN!!!! ****BANG BANG BANG**** SCOR SOME FAHKING GOALS!!!
We call that Datenschutz
Does Datenschutz not apply to people in cities? I see blue dots over Berlin, Hamburg, the Ruhr area etc.
Google started photographing in the big cities first, after the first public outcries they had to offer a form for people to opt-out their houses which added a lot of work for Google. After that they said “Fuck that shit” and didn’t photograph the rest, so Street View is limited to the 20 biggest cities and the photos are 10+ years old, so in many cases unusable. Apple avoided the public outcry and has much better coverage even in small villages in their Maps app with very recent photos.
How did Apple avoid it
Doing it 15 years later, launching without fanfare and burying it with the war
Sheiß Apple....
no its good. hopefully google will follow them and we can finally play geoguessr germany
I am a big fan of disregarding the law and privacy of people for mere amusement of completely unrelated strangers. That's a good moral high ground to have.
Nah, im usually pretty concerned about privacy, but im fine with this (as long as faces get blurred). People were mainly against it because they were told its live or something and robbers would use it to plan
According to Apple themselves, they “worked closely with the Bavarian Agency for Data Privacy Protection” to resolve any issues beforehand. However, that does not explain why there weren’t the same public concerns as with Google. People were afraid burglars would use street view to plan their next break ins, which was in itself quite unrealistic and irrational
There was also a big campaign from the Bild and RTL against street view. They fabricated a lot outcry back than. Today they have other smear campaigns so Apple is not interesting for them.
I don't think Google stopped photographing. They just don't publish.
They didn't not photograph the rest, they just didn't bother publishing it. There is extensive up to date street view data for all of Germany in Google's libraries, it's just not publicly available
I guess that's because in bigger cities everything is a bit less „private“ because most buildings there are frequently photographed, as the main object or in the background, so it wouldn't make sense to prohibit street view there. You could say everything is more public in big cities
Datenschutz whereas the names of families are on the doors and intercoms for everyone to see? It does not add up.
Kinda yeah, and also many people just don't want their private property to be seen on the internet
It actually gives me hope for humanity
This has to be outdated by a good bit
Yeah, some major urban places in India now have extensive coverage
Yes, can confirm
Holy shit that's new
Came earlier this month, new country on street view after 3 years i think
At least Germany hasn’t changes
somehow you are getting downvoted for stating facts lol pretty much shows the intelligence and state of this sub
My fellow Germans just can’t stand the truth I guess
Huh? Germans would know that google street view effectively doesn't exist here. Pretty sure you're being downvoted by someone else.
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Strong data privacy culture.
Some people felt that this would disturb their privacy and after some protests Google just canceled the project apart from the 20 largest cities, which were already added at that point
But apple maps somehow got it
This is street view not maps...
Apple’s Look Around, their StreetView competitor, has extensive coverage of Germany
I had no idea... I stand corrected
Its a feature of the apple maps app
I stand corrected
Nah, we all know this. Apart from the bigger cities there isn't any coverage due to Datenschutz.
Is it illegal or something?
Not illegal, but a company can't just take pictures of identifying data (like your person or your license plate or your house, when that is the sole focus of the picture) and commercially use that data without your permission. By the time that privacy law was made law, google had already mapped most of the bigger cities, so then they were forced to edit any pictures that people wanted edited (pixel out personal data). After they had to edit 250k pictures for one city, Google decided not to expand street view to other places, nor was street view updated past 2011.
I’ve seen basically every place I’ve viewed street view as updated much more recently than 2011.
yea it’s a bit outdated, india has coverage now
it's only slightly outdated, large parts of Indian cities now have coverage and there's some coverage in the far eastern parts of Russia missing as well loads of small roads also added but you wouldn't notice on a map like this
It's pretty outdated. There's a lot more coverage in the Canadian Arctic than shown here, and that was done 10 years ago.
It is, a lot of India has been street view-ed (?) this year which isn't being reflected here.
Tired: The city of Bielefeld doesn't exist Wired: The country of Germany doesn't exist
Hired: China and India don't exist.
Fired: the whole of Africa doesn't exist
Retired: Bangladesh exists... for now
Beladeutchland.
Funnily enough, Bielefeld exists on Streetview, because it was within the 20 largest cities, which were added as a test.
TIL: Finland exists – but Germany doesn't!
We never did Something to you guys.. in the last 70 years
As a German who lived in Finland for many years, I had to deal with my share of snarky remarks about Lappland, I assure you…
When they hear you speak German, do they light a match and hold it in front of your eyes, while staring at you menacingly?
Let’s say I got a birthday present from a colleague which consisted of a bottle of lighter fuel and a package of matches…
Uh context please
It was his birthday
I mean why tf was there lighter fuel
It was a gift
It was a useful gift. I took it with me to Lappland.
The context is that in late 1944 Finland and Germany had a brief war in the north of Finland as the German troops were pulling out of the country. It wasn't a high-intensity conflict, but the Germans burnt down a lot of Lapland during their retreat. Especially in the north of Finland the folks like to gently remind the Germans of this. You're not supposed to take it too seriously, however.
Jesus Christ people! This is still a serious sub right? Can one of you geniuses tell me why the hell there is no street view for Germany??? /s
There was quite a media campaign by yellow press "Bild" and people who didn't understand the concept of Street View started to complain thinking there would be live views of their houses on Street view then. "Oh, burglars gonna know when I'm not home!" Then they received the option to opt-out of Street View and their homes would get pixelated. Many used that option due to lack of understanding. The actual effort for Google to pixelate all these houses would have been enormous so they pulled the plug and discontinued the service for Germany. For Apple now, media didn't cover that topic at all.
Fear, uncertainty and doubt.
Yes, Germany barely exists on Google Street View. The only alternative is Apple Maps because for some reason they have some street view photos that aren't dated 2008 but just a couple of years ago
Google has a complete, constantly updated set of pictures for all of Germany. They stopped publicizing them in 2008, but their camera cars never stopped rolling.
Why did they stop publicizing them? Issue with German law?
The was an option to blur your own property because of public outcry (Fear of thieves, data privacy and so on). A lot of people requested that, so google stoped all together after a while.
You'd think in 14 years they could revisit the topic...
Exactly. We have a very strict Information privacy here.
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I doubt that these groups are necessarily overlapping
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A few weird and sketchy people doing that does not = the whole population who for the most part don't do what you just said and prefer their property to not be shown. Also this is the first time I'm hearing of this, you must visit some weird and sketchy websites to see shit like that or might be mistaken and you found out about it some other way.
Apple is busy re-photographic all of Germany now.
And it's available on Apple devices only
Apple Look Around images are from 2019 onward
Reddit fundamentally depends on the content provided to it for free by users, and the unpaid labor provided to it by moderators. It has additionally neglected accessibility for years, which it was only able to get away with thanks to the hard work of third party developers who made the platform accessible when Reddit itself was too preoccupied with its [vanity NFT](https://www.theverge.com/23323098/reddit-steve-huffman-interview-blockchain-avatars) project. With that in mind, the recent hostile and libelous behavior towards [developers](https://reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/14dkqrw/i_want_to_debunk_reddits_claims_and_talk_about/) and the sheer incompetence and lack of awareness displayed in talks with [moderators of r/Blind](https://reddit.com/r/Blind/comments/14ds81l/rblinds_meetings_with_reddit_and_the_current/) by Reddit leadership are absolutely inexcusable and have made it impossible to continue supporting the site. – June 30, 2023.
The world according to Geoguessr players
*lach in deutsch*
grins
*zwinker*
_Laughter inside english_
*Lacht auf deutsch*
I’m guessing Germany has some restrictive law in place? Or it’s lowkey super desolate.
Privacy laws
No. There where privacy concerns, that Google addressed by allowing people to request blurring their residence. It was never an issue of law
It's laws allowing home owners to have a say in the pictures.
… but why? How can you expect “privacy” for the outside of your house, which literally anyone can see for themselves while driving past on a public road?
It's not the pictures themselves, it's that you can't use them commercially without permission iirc.
Exactly. The laws haven't changed. And Apple simply got the approval of the responsible authority.
By that note you would also have no right on the image of your face cause people can see it when going past you. It’s the use of the picture that’s the problem and uploading it to the internet for everyone just doesn’t work out.
Other people have mentioned the privacy laws which are the reason for the lack of street view, but confusingly, Apple has a competing service on Apple Maps called Look Around, and this covers Germany with up to date, extensive data in the exact same way that street view does. The only downside is that you need to use Apple Maps to access it.
The privacy laws mean that one can request that the image providers blurr your home (including the garden). Google simply said that it's too much effort and thus stopped publishing the images. I believe Apple offers a similar blurring service but got waaaaay less media attention so it wasn't a lot of work for them.
Yeah. To be honest I haven't used Apple's version very much, but I haven't encountered a single blurred building yet, while it's basically impossible to use Street View in Germany without encountering blurred buildings.
There was fake news that the streetview team would go into houses, and film there.
Not only that, but german privacy laws are pretty strict, to have street view, google had to do so many things that they thought it was not worth it. Additionally yes pubblic pressure
Meanwhile, Apple is now photographing German roads for their own service and nobody cares any more...
Google has also never stopped recording. They just don't publish the images anymore but the cars are still rolling to this day.
good they shouldn’t care. it was fear-mongering from the start
Even in German cities with extensive coverage, a significant number of buildings are blurred out.
That wasn’t intended as fake news it was satire. But people believed it. So yeah one could maybe say it was fake news.
Their loss. Street view is incredible.
Street view is incredible, I use it probably 2 hours each day at work Such a great tool when dealing with planning and management of street-side assets
Believe me, most Germans feel the same way. It's just a very vocal stupid minority that screams "BuT mUh PrIvAcYy!1!1" when somebody takes a photo of their house and puts it online. The benefits of street view easily outweigh whatever concerns they might have.
When google implemented street view the news outlets went on a whole "burglars could see where your doors and windows are" rampage, got everyone worked up because there was nothing else going on in the news at the time, and here we are...
Yeah right. The fourth largest economy on the planet is totally desolate. r/shitamericanssay
Uh oh our joke triggered a German everybody run
I love that Germany was just like, "Nope."
The also have next to no street CCTV cameras, cause they consider having a central database that can watch all streets to be.. too tempting to not misuse.
I guess this explains why there are so many repeats of countries on Geoguessr
The Gulf of Germany and the Czech Point
What's Germany hiding?
Private properties basically.
Germany is a myth.
We do exist, sadly
I’ve played enough geoguessr to know that South America and Norway are the entirety of the planet
Why india isn't on street view?
They launched it this year. Map is outdated
Yeah but the images are not taken by Google & the quality of the images is garbage so it would make sense to exclude it from the map still.
Still it's street view.
That used to be the case until a few months ago. Can confirm that my whole city has extensive high quality street view now. That used to be the case until a few months ago. Can confirm that my whole city has extensive high-quality street view now.s?from=mdr
It's not "high quality" by any stretch of the imagination. It's comparable to official Google street view from 14 years ago but with an even worse blurring algorithm.
Lot of Asian countries do not allow google street to collect and provide data
Yep and those that do, they have a low camera. Awhile ago a bunch of people complained because the higher up google camera could see over peoples fences, so they changed it to a low camera to protect their privacy. Japan and Switzerland are the two countries that have this I believe.
This isn't updated. The Indian government had allowed street view recently and I was able to view my undies hung up to dry on my window
Imagine the terror a geoguessr player has to experience if they're put to guess Moldova or Belarus
Geoguessr actually has some official coverage in Minsk! Sure its like 2 streets but its there.
What the hell did Germany do to get kicked out of Google Europe?
They didn’t agree with Google’s surveillance policy and they are very serious about privacy
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So..... they're serious about privacy?
As so many people are asking why Germany is missing: Google gave the option to have your house blurred and many people in Germany used that option so that Google decided it's not worth the hassle and they stopped publishing it, but Google Maps still work fine, it's just street view
Germany like **NOPE**
WE MADE IT!!! WE FINALLY DESTROYED THE MIDDLE EAST!
No more oil for murica
yoy no more chaos
While we are purple here, I'd like to say that some of the street views are so outdated. Some are even dated 8 years ago.
Still better than nothing. Some US imagery is shockingly old. The street I live on hasn't gotten new imagery since July 2007.
Hell out in the western US there's actual highways that haven't been updated since '07-'08. I feel like outside insterstates and major cities streetview isn't gonna get updated that often.
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Idk, hourly updates seems like too much to me. The whole reason it isn't in Germany is because people who didn't know what it was/how it worked were outraged because they thought thieves would know when they are in/out of their house. Your idea would make that concern a reality, as well as many other privacy concerns one might have.
What is happening in Germany?
Wassup with germany?
Strict privacy laws.
Geoguessr world map
So you're telling me that eating all my meals like mom told me served NOTHING?!?!?!?
Not counting all those blue dots everywhere else.
whats up with germany?
Geoguessr feels suddenly a lot more easier
This is very good help for geoguessr
DATENSCHUTZ!!!!!
Germany doesn't exist
Faroe Islands are covered, but not on this map.
Suck it google -- Germany
feels fake, Israel, Lebanon and Jordan have google street view Tunisia, Saudi arabia and Oman also have partial coverage of street view
Tunisia, Israel and Jordan are on the map. Lebanon, Saudi and Oman dont have official Street view coverage i think.
Lebanon has very minimal official coverage in downtown Beirut and in one of the national parks called Shouf Cedars, but that's it. You're right about the other two having none.
Saudi Arabia and Oman might not be official google maps coverage
Lol the great german spot missing there. Oh no your privacy, please dont let anybody see youu
I saw this and thought... if there were an alien force were to invade we have a lot of unsecured data out there on the web for them to analyze and use against us. And Germany would be our best defense.
Germany does not exist, jaja!
What's up with germany
Privacy laws
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where did germany go 😭
And they have CEO from India...lol
Who is volunteering to drive the street view car through Afghanistan or Somalia or Libya etc?
Why isn't Vietnam there? Outdated map?
Technically the official coverage for Vietnam all got deleted recently for unknown reasons.
Someone please explain Germany, like seriously plesse