Google Streetview - Just who owns the rights to pictures of my house?

So today Google Streetview started up, and I look at my place, and there, lo and behold, is my car - with my number plates purely legible for all to see - WTF!

So I look at the option that says "report", and - aha - I have to give it an email address and admit to it being my car if I want it removed. (luckily I keep an anonymised one for just such things).

And it would seem its not just me - the BBC notes there have been "dozens of complaints".

A spokesperson for Google told the BBC that anyone could have their images removed if they asked.

"We've got millions of images, so the percentage removed was very small," Google's Laura Scott told the BBC.

"We want this to be a useful tool and it's people's right to have their image removed.

I suspect there are many, many thusands of number plates etc visible, as one Twitterer noted:

It's quite easy to find unblurred reg. plates and faces isn't it?

I will also predict that there are actually tens of thousands of people who would ask for their images to be removed if they knew they were on Google, but are not aware yet - and maybe never will be. At the very least I think Google should be obligated to conduct a public information campaign to every private householder in the UK informing them that:

- their property appears on the Google database
- they have the right to take it off

But I'm still scratching my head as to quite why this is a "useful tool", and for whom - and more importantly, how come Google has the rights to display stuff I own, for its own profit, without either:

- my permission
- paying me for the usage of images of my property for onsale.

Somehow this has to contravene some rules on privacy already? I need to get my Law-o-Pedia down the pub for a quiet drink and report back.

(Update - another lawyer friend pinged me and said its worth looking at the principle of going unlisted as was established for Phone Directories)

Big picture on a "useful tool" also is this - I can see the mischief that can be done with this - for example here are the houses and addresses of known people in X (choose the movement you hate ) for all my Tribe to, um, consider discussing our disagreements with. And I'm not clear I can see the commensurate public good, unless property voyeurism is considered a good thing?