UK campaign group Privacy International are concerned that it will break data protection laws; despite Google’s efforts to protect personal privacy.

There are fears that as Google’s specially equipped vehicles capture images of UK streets, they will also record the faces of passers-by, potentially infringing their rights to privacy.

Despite Google’s assurances that personal images will be removed on request and that automatic face blurring technology will be used to detect and obscure faces, several rights groups are not convinced.

“In our view they need a person’s consent if they make use of a person’s face for commercial ends,” said Simon Davis of Privacy International.

The group has now written to Google requesting details of its proposed face blurring algorithm and has threatened to ask the Information Commissioner to suspend any UK service unless they receive a satisfactory reply within 7 days.

“We’ve spoken to Google in the past about this and received a snide response telling us to look more closely at their blogs [and] that the technology is not ready to be deployed.”

Although Street View has caused controversy in the United States, the practice of photographing people in American cities without express consent is legal; unlike in Europe where privacy laws are more stringent.

“It’s time for the company to take responsibility for its actions and to do the right thing.” added Davis.

In turn, Google has responded by saying that it complies fully with local laws in all of the markets in which it operates.

Google Street View has yet to launch in the UK, though continues its roll-out across the United States, Australia, France and Italy.

Juniper’s study indicates that 577 million people now use mobile internet services; and predict that the figure will exceed 1.7 billion by 2013.

The increase is put down to a heightened demand for mobile access to Web 2.0 services and wider takeup of 3G technology.

Many Web 2.0 properties, which tend to focus on user collaboration and social networking, have made mobile access a key part of their offering, blurring the line between the traditional and mobile web. For example, popular networking sites such as Twitter allow users to update their profiles either via mobile web access or by SMS text message.

Juniper speculate that the changes in how people are using mobile internet access will fundamentally change the market, removing the power of mobile service providers to control the content subscribers are exposed to.

“The mobile web 2.0 market is still nascent and business models remain in a state of flux, so there is still time for players to establish fruitful partnerships that build on their strengths and are reciprocally beneficial. The window of opportunity, however, is closing,” explained Ian Chard, analyst for Jupiter Research.

Mobile internet access is particularly popular in China, where fixed broadband connections are not as prevalent in homes as in Europe and North America. The report indicates this region will be the largest market by 2013, with an estimated 416 million users.

The increased competition is likely to mean that many Web 2.0 applications will need to be provided either at a low, flat rate or free of charge, forcing the industry to reevaluate their revenue streams.

Google Ad Planner, which has been released as an invitation-only beta, will also suggest other sites that fit the advertisers’ criteria.

Demographic data featured in Google Ad Planner includes visitor age, gender, household income and level of education.

The information will help advertisers identify likely targets for their ads, but the system does not feature any type of ad buying or selling functionality; potential sites will still have to be approached individually.

The service also provides fairly accurate records of the overall popularity of websites, showing the numbers of unique visitors and page views for each site as this report at Search Engine Roundtable indicates. Many media planners have previously relied either on the data the website gives them or on wildly inaccurate data from toolbar based information services such as Alexa and Compete.

Google’s release of Ad Planner follows a recent expansion of the Google Trends service that monitors searches for web addresses rather than just keywords.

However, the apparent freeing up of Google’s vast repository of data isn’t quite as wide-ranging as you might think - information from major Google properties such as their search portals, YouTube, Blogger and Picasa are all excluded.

Google’s excuse? They don’t want to give away guidance on their earnings before they are officially announced. Though oddly it seems OK to include data for Yahoo and Microsoft…