The world at your disposal

Following last month's terrorist situation in Mumbai, legal advocates in India demand that the country's High Court implement a "blur" on certain locations featured in Google Earth.

Earlier this week it was revealed that the terrorists used a number of so-called "new" technologies, including Google Earth and VoIP mobile services, to organize their attacks.

According to the petition, Google Earth "aids terrorists in plotting attacks" and provides "absolutely no control to prevent misuse or limit access" to sensitive locations, reports The Times.

India's High Court hasn't yet responded to the petition, but this isn't the first time Google has been criticized for failing to prioritize national security. In 2005, operators of an Australian nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights requested that Google censor images of the plant, concerned they could be used to enable terrorist attacks. And in March, the Pentagon banned Google's StreetView team from accessing military bases.

StreetView provides photographic footage of an area from a pedestrian perspective.

Governments aren't the only ones made skittish by the broad availability of such granular data. This summer North Oaks, a small town in Minnesota, demanded that Google exclude StreetView photos of its streets from Google Maps.