A tiny fraction of those who would oppose having their property shown on street view would be aware of it and take the time to do anything about it. So 250k people is quite a lot, and probably means a much larger percent of the population are bothered by it.

Nah, there was a huge media campaign against Street View. It was used by polititian to gain some "we care for you" profile and was mainly driven by the media companies that have a strong anti google stance in germany mainly because they want a part of Google's profits.

It would be interesting to know how many of those 250k feel that Street View is a useful service, but just don't want their own home/business on it.