Officials from New Zealand, Canada, France and seven other countries are raising privacy concerns about Google's mapping service. The problem is not so much the fact that the search outfit is taking snaps of everything on the road but the problem that it is linking the whole thing to social notworking. The officials complained that Google forgets people's privacy rights as it rolls out new technologies. Most of the problems are to do with Buzz, which Google launched in February as part of its Gmail service.

But in a letter sent this week to Google chief executive Eric Schmidt, privacy and data-protection officials from the 10 countries said they are still "extremely concerned about how a product with such significant privacy issues was launched in the first place." Buzz "betrayed a disappointing disregard for fundamental privacy norms and laws. Moreover, this was not the first time you have failed to take adequate account of privacy considerations when launching new services."

Google Street View was launched it in various countries without "due consideration of privacy and data protection laws and cultural norms", the letter complains. While Google addressed privacy concerns related to such matters as the retention of unblurred facial images only after the fact, and there is continued concern about the adequacy of the information you provide before the images are captured.

The letter was posted on the Web site of Canada's privacy commissioner. Google said it has "discussed all these issues publicly many times before and have nothing to add to today's letter."