By now, I’m sure everyone in the search industry is aware that Google launched their street view pictures within Google Maps (and also the acquisition of Panoramio). Not surpringly, articles are popping up about potential privacy issues. The best answer I’ve seen so far is from Lauren Weinstein, a renowned expert in Internet privacy.

His conclusion: “So, bottom line — for now the Google Maps street level photos provide a useful service and should not raise significant privacy concerns, except for a tiny percentage of photos that can be easily expunged. Whether this benign situation will remain the case depends upon Google’s decisions regarding the service moving forward.”

What it means: as I believe visual navigation is a key element of the future of local search, I invite everyone interested in the subject to read Lauren’s remarks on the launch of Google StreetView.