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Google StreetView Is In Your Driveway
hermit_crab writes "Janet and George McKee are the neighbors of the Borings, who we discussed yesterday as the couple suing Google over StreetView. The McKees own a house that is featured in a much more intrusive set of Google StreetView images. 'The Google car continued past the steps leading to the McKees's front door and came to a stop outside the house's three-car garage (and next to the family's trampoline and portable basketball rim). Taking photos all the time, the Google vehicle was squarely on private property, a fact that presumably should have been apparent when the gravel path became paved.' Unlike the Borings, the McKees have not announced intentions to sue Google, nor have they requested to have the images removed."
Sure, I grew up on a gravel road, but my gravel public lanes never came complete with garage doors!.
They were clearly and undeniably in the couples' driveway.
Last week, Spokane has a lot of streets inside the city that aren't paved.
That and a lot of "private" drives are city/county roads that homeowners have taken some liberties with. I drive by three "allies" on a regular basis that homeowners have seeded with grass. A quick look at the city maps and it's clear they haven't actually vacated the ally. I've heard some instances of road departments designating private roads as county roads in order to do a friend a favor as well.
Platform advocacy is like choosing a favorite severely developmentally disabled child.
In fact if you pull up the GIS data (or googles maps which are based on city/county maps), the county road extends all the way to where the Google photographed. Just because they got a permit to pave a county road doesn't mean it isn't a county road anymore.
That they chose to put a trampoline and their house right up against it is irrelevant.
Platform advocacy is like choosing a favorite severely developmentally disabled child.
Signs, signs, everywhere signs
Blocking out the scenery, breaking my mind
Do this, don't do that... can't you read the signs?
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Gawking in my window from the public street is legal. Gawking in my window from my driveway/lawn/whatever is not. The difference? I own my driveway. The problem here is that Google employed an idiot driver who blindly followed the GPS, which apparently indicated that the street terminated around the garage. They *should have* recognized a clear property line at the concrete drive.
While it's true that you can control whether people can take photographs while on your property, or enter your property for any reason, unless the property is clearly posted "NO TRESPASSING," someone on a readily accessible part of the property isn't considered to be trespassing. Exactly how this works varies depending upon state law. Pennsylvania state law will not consider entering and turning around in a driveway trespassing unless the driveway is marked as private or is gated or otherwise enclosed in a manner that is designed to secure it from intruders. See http://members.aol.com/StatutesPA/18.Cp.35.html. So there was no criminal or civil offense committed.
As to the status of the photographs, they clearly do not violate the privacy of the homeowners, because the area photographed was publicly visible anyway. It would be difficult to imagine a situation in which a court would provide any remedy other than ordering that the photographs be taken down.
Just to make this clear - the fact that photographs are taken on private property does not in any way automatically constitute a violation of privacy or automatically assign ownership of the photos to anyone other than the photographer. You can take photographs of whatever you want from private property as long as you are not instructed not to do so. The issue is what happens afterward - what use do you make of them. Invasion of privacy, copyrighted works visible in photographs, espionage, commercial exploitation, trespass, and so on, are separate issues.
Just because the road's on a county map doesn't make it a county road. The road outside my house shows up on Google, but it's owned and maintained by the neighborhood HOA. The driveway in front of the Boring's house was marked as a private road and maintained by them, but it also shows up on Google.
Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
Just because a road is on the maps, does not make it a public road.
Around 1996 or so, maps of our county were updated using areal photography, among other means. Our driveway, which is clearly posted, gated, about 600 feet long, and looks like a public road from the air, showed up on the next edition of the county map. We contacted the correct parties, who apologized, explained that it was an error, and took our driveway off of subsequent versions of the map.
Another state in which we own property requires that shared driveways be named for 911 purposes. We own the road, our neighbors have an easement, and the road name is on file with the county, but that doesn't give anybody the right to drive down it without permission (by the way, it's clearly posted). We don't get any government funding to maintain it, although we do get a sign with the road name where it meets the county road. Such street signs are yellow (not green), and have the letters "PVT" in addition to the road name. It's understood that such roads are legally no different than driveways, in that if the road is posted, you can be charged with criminal trespass for driving on it.
Stating that this is standard legal stuff and then assuming that it has been around for 500 years kinda shows how little you know about what you speak up about.
An employee is only under the protection by the company if they do not voilate the company rules. Like if they go and break the law when the company says that they will obey the law in their handbook, which is why they say things like that in there. Google didn't tell them to go to a specific lat/lon, they were tasked to follow the public roads and cover as much ground as they could while doing so.
If this goes to court all google has to say is "we asked the drivers to do X Y and Z" and they did w instead. Without instructions do tresspass the drivers are left with their own decisions and subsequent consequences. If google is a regular company and had the drivers sign a form that states they read the employee handbook, and they put in the employee handbook some clause to the effect of "don't break the law." then they are legally in the clear. PR and emotional juries notwithstanding of course.
) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
Just because something isn't illegal doesn't mean it is reasonable to do it. A word of advice: be suspicious of someone loitering in front of one's house all day gawking at it. Double the suspicion if they are taking pictures. Quadruple the suspicion if they represent a company making money off of it. Someone can follow you around in your car all day long on public roads then blog about it. It's not illegal, but it doesn't mean you should tolerate it nor does it make their actions reasonable or acceptable.
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