Google’s Street View isn’t winning many converts in Europe. The European Union (EU), in an aggressive move to protect the privacy of its citizens, has just told Google that it can’t keep it’s unaltered Street View images any longer than six months. Google, unsurprisingly, is not happy with the news.

According to EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding, “In Europe, we have high standards for data protection. I expect that all companies play according to the rules of the game.” And the EU didn’t stop there: “Google needs to raise much more awareness of Street View cars going though people's streets as there is an option to opt out of appearing in them but no one knows about it.”

Google’s response came from corporate lawyer Peter Fleischer, who said, “The need to retain the unblurred images is legitimate and justified--to ensure the quality and accuracy of our maps, to improve our ability to rectify mistakes in blurring, as well as to use the data we have collected to build better maps products for our users.” And it probably doesn’t help that a six-month retention limit might double Google’s Street View costs.

While it appears that Google will comply with the EU’s dictate, it has no such plans for amending its present 12-month policy elsewhere. Says Fleischer: “We have publicly committed to a retention period of 12 months from the date on which images are published on Street View, and this is the period which we will continue to meet globally.”

Word are wonderful for conveying information, but sometimes not so hot for communicating. Pictures, by comparison, are transcendent. Not only are they capable of passing along a lot more information (the old “thousand words” adage), they don’t suffer from the human filter requisite of language. Google figured this out with Street View and Images: communication is picture-based, not word-based.

Limits on the use of pictures or images are both technological and arbitrary. Google’s got the technology, now its chipping away at the arbitrary. What started with Street View, which shows us the outsides of things, may be moving to “Store View”, which will show us the inside of things. Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Land is passing along a tip from a New York retailer that Google might be in the process of taking pictures inside of retail establishments, with the plan of linking them to Street View.

There are definite advantages for Google and retailers in this. Google will drive more traffic to its sites, in particular Google Maps, while retailers can show off who they are and what they have to offer. It can aid consumers as well, as they’ll get a general feel for a store before venturing a foot inside.

Google hasn’t commented on its new endeavor, so right now “Store View” is entirely speculative. But, logically, it does fit into an overall market behavior for Google.