St. Paul suburb tells Google Maps to keep out

The city of 4,500 residents has demanded that Google Maps remove images of North Oaks homes from the website's Street View feature, where any Internet user can glimpse a home from the nearest road.

North Oaks' unique situation, in which the roads are privately owned by the residents and the city enforces a trespassing ordinance, may have made it the first city in the country to request that the online search engine remove images from Google Maps.

"It's not the hoity-toity folks trying to figure out how to keep the world away," said Mayor Thomas Watson. "They really didn't have any authorization to go on private property."

Since the introduction of Google Maps' Street View last spring, the feature has caused controversy in several cities and with the federal government. The Pentagon banned Google Maps from taking any images of military facilities, and a Pittsburgh couple sued the company over images of their home taken from the private road in front of their house.

The North Oaks City Council sent a letter to Google in January asking the company to remove the images and destroy the files or possibly be cited for violating the city's trespassing ordinance.

Google spokeswoman Elaine Filadelfo said the images of North Oaks were removed shortly afterward. She didn't know of any other city in the country that has made a similar request.