Google responds to Street View questions

The Charlotte Parker reported on Friday that a driver for Google Maps was spotted in the neighborhood with a roof-mounted camera to collect 360-degree street-level images for Google Maps' Street View. After the sighting, The Charlotte Parker asked Google for details on Street View for Nashville, and today Kat Malinowska of Google Inc. responded.

Malinowska declined to confirm the specifics of Google's Street View vehicles, but said, "We're focused on making this service available in as many cities as possible. At first we will focus on major metropolitan areas but plan on making Street View more comprehensive as time goes on. We will be adding Street View imagery for new cities on an ongoing basis and will be announcing new imagery rollouts on the Google Lat Long blog."

(A statement from the company on privacy issues related to Street View is included in a Sept. 24 post on the Google Lat Long blog.)

When asked about Google's presence in Nashville -- time period, number of vehicles and expected date for producing map images -- Malinowska said Google cannot confirm or provide driving details, except to say the company is "collecting imagery on an ongoing basis." Malinowska said Google has not received any local (Nashville) inquiries about the Street View cars.