Google Getting Sued over “Street View”
Invasion of Privacy! claims a Pennsylvania couple after filing a 10 page lawsuit with the Search Engine Giant. The couple claims their privacy was invaded when the Google “Streetview” vehicle took a picture, up their long driveway, while there was a posted “Private Road” sign at the end of the driveway. Google’s defense, they have a method for the public users to request images be taken off the site. Do you think Google is at fault? What are your thoughts on this?
The Borings say the images of their home on the Google site had to be taken from their long driveway, labeled “Private Road,” and that violated their privacy.
“There’s no merit to this action,” Google spokesman Larry Yu said. “It is unfortunate litigation was chosen to address the concern because we have visible tools, such as a YouTube video, to help people learn about imagery removal and an easy-to-use process to facilitate image removal.”
You can read the entire article by Click Here. Thanks FoxNews for breaking the story.
Filed under: Google, Google Maps, Maps, People
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I wonder if the couple really understands how many legal definitions of “private roads” are out there. Unless the Google Van broke through a physical barrier to obtain the images, I do not think the private couple will win any case against Google on this.
I really hope that this couple wins this lawsuit against Google. I don’t like the fact that anyone can view your home, street, etc..etc.. I wish there was a place where you could submmit your information for your address to dissapear from the web site. Or also to complaint about it. If anyone knows how we can remove our info please post it. Thanks. L
I wonder if it started out based on the imagery only… until they realized that the County had similar imagery and in much better quality (many counties do this as part of property assessment services). Then it may have morphed into the private property access thing and less about the imagery.
In response to Anonymous… Here is a link to a youtube video that shows you the steps to have an address removed.. Check it out.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4ZdgH5n3XI
Neill
So it is ok for Google to invade privacy because you can search through all their data and report any problems yourself, and at their discretion they will remove it. I’m sorry but personally I do not believe the public should have to prove all data posted by big companies is or isn’t invading privacy, the company should prove all data is legal before releasing it. I’m used to my privacy being invaded and abused by my government, not happy of course, but private companies doing this is just not acceptable.