Yes I have seen it. IMPRESSIVE. And SCARY too. No Privacy at all.
They pay for use of satellite images for the standard mapping.
But street view is different.
Teams of men drive around the large cities.
They use an 11 lens camera on top of a VW bug!
You can read about the special google camera on this page. Many small towns do not have street view and will not have it.
costs too much!
STATISTICS:
$45,000 for the camera PLUS
$45,000 for the mounting equipment PLUS
$125 to $700
per mile of video footage
camera lens: 11 on each camera
camera size: about the size of a softball (fit in your hand, half the size of soccer ball)
Video images, 30 frames per second
Resolution: 2400 by 1200 pixel
Teams worldwide: 6 (at the end of 2007)
Men on team: 2 people in the automobile
Microsoft is developing a product like it called Windows Live Street View.
That one has a dashboard like you are driving a car.
The street view does many major roads and some smaller roads.
But not all roads.
You can not see MY home that way.
They stop a block away from my house.