The British launch of Street View sparked a nasty media battle between Google and Privacy International, primarily because we see the world from different perspectives. For Google, Street View enriches people’s lives. From our perspective, it can cause harm and embarrassment, and in extreme cases a clear and present danger to vulnerable people.

Of course, we don’t deny that Street View is a cool technology. But now that it has been deployed, who will look after the concerns of the victims of domestic violence who are in hiding, or the people in witness protection programmes that are identified? And what of those many people who simply feel that the service is an intrusion?

All we ever asked of Google is that it should consult the people who will be affected by its new services. Had it done so, many of the negative headlines and the occasional public hostility could have been avoided. Maybe it understands this reasoning. For the first time our two organisations have begun a dialogue.

Google reached out to us after the latest spate of headlines and in return we started passing on to it the complaints that we have received, which I’m pleased to say the company has dealt with swiftly and effectively.

Simon Davies is the founder and director of Privacy International