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upstart writes in with a submission, via IRC, for chromas.

Google Maps has now photographed 10 million miles in Street View

If Google were to have a mascot, it might be the Street View car, with its towering camera rig and corporate logo exterior. There's good reason for that. In the 12 years since the search giant debuted Street View, which photographs the world at street level, the cars have been the company's ambassadors around the globe, prowling urban metropolises and rural countrysides.

On Friday, Google revealed how much work those cars and other devices have done to map the world: the company has captured more than 10 million miles of Street View imagery. The distance, Google said, would amount to circling the Earth more than 400 times.

The company also said Google Earth, the search giant's aerial mapping service, has a total of 36 million square miles of satellite imagery for people to browse. With that collection, Google has mapped out the parts of the world where 98% of people live.

The numbers mark the first time Google has released figures on how much of the world its services have charted, providing insight into the scope of Google Maps. With more than 1 billion monthly users, Maps is one of the company's most popular products. It's also a potent way for the search giant to deliver local advertising.

[...] Knowing the extent to which Google has photographed the physical world will be of little comfort to people who think the company already has too much data about us, our surroundings and our activity online.

Google, like its peers in Silicon Valley, is under pressure over its data collection practices. The company generates most of its nearly $140 billion in annual revenue from targeted ads, which are buttressed by user data. That includes ads on Google Maps, though the company doesn't break out those revenue figures. Google declined to comment on Maps ad revenue.

[...] [Ethan] Russell stressed that Google's mapping imagery is from public places you'd see while standing in the street or flying overhead. He said the company gets all of its satellite photographs from third-party providers.

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