Google has acquired Panoramio, a Spanish photo-sharing website that lets people upload photos and identify where they were taken by placing them on Google Earth or Google Maps.

The companies have already been working together since the start of the year.

“We have tightened our relationship with Google Earth more and more in recent months, and at the end we decided to walk one step further,” wrote Panoramio’s founders on the company blog.

John Hanke, director of Google’s Map, Earth, and Local programs explained that “its [Panoramio] photos have been a default layer in Google Earth since the beginning of the year.”

“This layer will remain in place as our teams work together toward further integrating this amazing content, generated by many, into our mapping technologies.”

Panoramio’s key technology is its ability to allow users to “geolocate” pictures that they took, allowing them to position them on a map. The site also allows users to store and organize their pictures, similar to many other photo-sharing sites on the Web.

Google said the acquisition will allow the company to incorporate Panoramio’s technology and its developers more fully into Google’s mapping programs.

The move should help to strengthen Google’s position against Yahoo for providing online photo services. Yahoo owns the popular Flickr photo-sharing service, whose users can also locate their photos on Google Earth, although they don’t appear as the default layer.

Financial terms of the acquisition, which is pending, were not disclosed. Google said it planned to keep operating the site for now and that there won’t be any immediate changes for Panoramio’s users.

Panoramio users will be able to opt out of having their personal information transferred to Google, should the deal be completed.

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Entry was posted on Thursday, May 31st, 2007 at 11:32 pm under Google, Technology, Uncategorized.

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