Street View Arrives in Canada

This week Google expanded its Street View function on Google Maps to include imagery from eleven cities across Canada.

Google says that with the 2010 Winter Games coming in February, Street View will enable people within Canada and worldwide to explore the host city and Olympic venues, from B.C. Place Stadium to Whistler Village, and other regions and landmarks across Canada. There are also the obvious benefits for real estate websites.

Google Street View first launched in May 2007 and in 2009 alone, Canadians have already viewed more than 150 million Street View images of other countries.

Imagery is now available for 13 countries in addition to Canada: Australia, the Czech Republic, France, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, the UK and the US. It is also available on Google Maps for Mobile.

The Canadian cities and regions currently explorable via Street View on Google Maps are: Vancouver, Whistler, Squamish, Banff, Calgary, Kitchener-Waterloo, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City and Halifax. Additional cities and regions throughout the country will be added soon.

Webware reports that whether Google would ever be able to bring Street View to Canada was very much up in the air not too long ago. In September 2007, Canada’s Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart wrote to Google saying that she was concerned that the service might violate her country’s privacy regulations. The search giant resolved these concerns by consulting with Canada’s federal and provincial Privacy Commissioners in developing Street View and its privacy safeguards.

While market leading portal realtor.ca uses Bing maps, new entrant property search engine zoocasa.com, which uses Google Maps, has not yet activated Street View.

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