Hamburg - Internet giant Google said Monday it would allow German householders to complain before images of theirhomes are included in the search company's new Street View service. Street View is a feature of Google Maps which provides free panoramic photographs of city streets from eye level in the United States, Japan, Australia and European nations.

Privacy campaigners have claimed it makes it easy for snoopers to discover anyone's quality of home from afar.

In most countries, users can ask to have photographs of themselves, their children, their cars or their houses completely removed.

Google Germany said it would permit Germans to intervene and obtain removal before photographs of their homes are even published.

Official privacy commissioners in Germany, who have led talks with the German branch of the US company, indicated Monday they would be satisfied with that additional concession. Street View is not yet online for Germany, though much of the country has been photographed.

The commissioners have complained in the past that the feature may reveal the "lifestyles" of people against their will, and initially they were calling on Google not to even take the photographs in the first place if people objected.

Several said a veto before publication would be sufficient.

"I have the impression that Google is going in the right direction," said Helga Naujok, an official for the commissioner in the state of Hamburg. She said commissioners still wanted to see how protests via the Google website functioned.

The pictures are taken by specially-equipped camera cars.

Users can open Street View by clicking on a small human figure above the magnify button on a Google Maps page.

Residents, often of gated and expensive mansions, have campaigned in several parts of the world to stop the Google cars.

Stefan Keuchel of Google Germany said Monday that after publication, only about 0.1 per cent of householders had actually asked to have images of their buildings removed from the database.(dpa)