New Delhi (Sputnik) — India has turned down Alphabet Inc.'s three-year-old proposal to launch "Google Street View" in the country.
"Google had submitted a proposal on 'Google Street View' for the Government's permission in July 2015, which allows users to explore places around the world through 360-degree panoramic street-level imagery and view public areas. The government has not agreed to the proposal," Hansraj Gangaram Ahir, India's Minister of State for Home Affairs informed the parliament on Tuesday.
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Earlier, on an experimental basis, Google had launched "Street View" at some tourist sites across India, such as the Taj Mahal, the Red Fort, Qutub Minar, Varanasi river bank, Nalanda University, Mysore Palace, Thanjavur temple and the Chinnaswamy stadium, in partnership with the Archaeological Society of India. But, for the application to access every nook and corner of India, the company required the permission of the government of India.
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Earlier this month, Google launched an open-source project that aims to simplify India's chaotic street address through "Plus Codes" — a location-based digital tagging system that divides the landscape into tiles and assigns a unique code to each, making navigation easier. Plus Codes have a "6-character + city" format and can be generated online and offline on Google Maps, which can also be shared by anyone on Google Maps.