What's the next logical step for a company that's been raising eyebrows among privacy groups across the globe? Why, launching the world's highest-resolution commercial satellite, of course.

Google has done just that with the 4,300-pound GeoEye-1. The massive satellite, which moves at 7,000 miles per hour (4.5 miles per second) between the North and South Pole, just snagged its first image--Pennsylvania's Kutztown University.

Don't get too nervous, though GeoEye's VP of marketing told Wired, "This is the opposite of a spy satellite. Spies don't put info on the Internet and sell imagery. We're an Earth-imaging satellite, and we can sell our imagery to customers around the world who have a need to map and measure and monitor things on the ground."

GeoEye-2 is set to launch in 2011 or 2012--by then privacy groups will likely have faster and heavier things to worry about.