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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."
Why should that be apparent? There are gravel public lanes (and even a road or two) in my city, and it never would have occurred to me that such a thing would automatically mean private property.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
They have no right to be on private property.
Learn about Photography Basics.
...for your driveway.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Those are low-resolution photos of someone's driveway. Fume all your want, the outside of your house is not legally private. You may get upset by me standing on a public road and gawking at it for the whole day, but there is not anything you can do about that (unless I make any threatening comments about my future intent).
Did people forget how to buy curtains?
Google maps has a feature that allows people to post pictures of various 'landscapes'. Streetview is bad enough, what if users start posting 'shower views'?
Dear Mr and Mrs McKee,
Your 15 minutes of fame are here. If you would like to capitalize on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I would suggest you contact our agency immediately. We have companies lined up, looking for advertising space, and if you act RIGHT NOW, we can offer you a lucrative advertising contract. We have excellent rates available for both rooftop and curtain based advertising.
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-1 Uncomfortable Truth
As much as I am not overly concerned about google's invasion of privacy (with street view)... I am unsure of the point of this article.
Just because one person does not care if google is all up on their grill, this does not mean that other people shouldn't care.
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.
ot: slashdot is getting so ridiculously ajaxy! the preview "loading" pane is pink!
They should change it to magenta.120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
It looked to me like the Google van turned down a side street and realized too late that it was a private driveway. By the time they had turned around and gone out to the main road, their van had already captured the pictures. What the operators should have done is to erase the last N seconds worth of pictures from street view, but for some reason they didn't (do they even have the capability?).
I read the internet for the articles.
Frivolous lawsuits hurt our economy and make lawyers $$$.
More over; this still comes down to the basics of; "if you have nothing to hide, then what is the problem?"
If you don't understand why "if you have nothing to hide, then what is the problem?" is a problem, then you really don't understand this issue.
Uh, all the time in my home town. Many roads were nothing more than cross cuts between fields or around farms, and short sections would be dirt, gravel, or paved. Many paved sections would have long runs where there were not lines painted on it. Some of these roads led to as few as 2 or 3 houses. Some to public parks. Some to the community running track and socker field. What was a road or a driveway was not clearly obvious.
Also, perhaps the driver was simply pulling up to see if there was part of the driveway to turn around in, without having to pitch a k-turn on a single lane gravel road in a big google van...
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
Perhaps Google should be reviewing the photos before putting them on their website, instead of assuming that all pictures are OK.
It's pretty obvious that they were on someone's private driveway, and that they tried to turn around on someone's private property. Whoops, mistakes happen, but that's why you verify the results afterwards.
From the fine article:
... the Streetview driver drove down a named road marked on his map, which wasn't posted as private, wasn't obviously private, and ended up having to find a place to turn around at the end ... which just happened to be in the driveway of these homeowners. So what? As a homeowner myself, I hardly find this outrageous ... people turn around in my driveway all the time. And although Streetview has missed my house by a block, I'm not going to be outraged when they finally come back.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/0407081google2.html
I se no evidence of "private road" signs, nor do I see "no trespassing" signs. The house is certainly not visible from the main street, and it's not really visible where the "gravel" portion of the driveway becomes "concrete", which was supposed to be some big tipoff.
I fail to be impressed
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.
Maybe they were lost. After all, it isn't as though they had access to any maps or anything.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Agreed with removing the pictures... the drivers should be able to turn off the camera, or at least log when they feel the pictures should be reviewed for removal (like when he says to himself "Oops, I'm in a driveway and pulled the 30 feet all the way in so much so that I can see inside this house!").
They were clearly and undeniably in the couples' driveway. If it were a driveway, why would the city/county have given it a name?
I think there's a lot of deniability there.
Platform advocacy is like choosing a favorite severely developmentally disabled child.
It's clear the driver needed to make a u-turn in the driveway. There should be an on-off button for the picture taking precisely for this. There should have been no pictures taken from the dirveway.
Compare the difference between the street view and the picture from the road at the county assessors.
Frankly I am more concerned about all the info available in other ways. When I was looking into buying a distressed home from someone trying to flip it, I found the social security numbers in mortgage papers online with the county. They just scanned them and put them online. When we bought a different house, I made sure that lots of stuff was blacked-out before it was duplicated.
Which is pretty much how I suspect this will break down.
Resident: You drove on my property!
Google: This county road?
Resident: That's my driveway!!!!
Google: Hold on while I get the county commisioner in on this.
Resident: NEVERMIND, HAVE A NICE DAY!!!!
Platform advocacy is like choosing a favorite severely developmentally disabled child.
The cameras, and when and how they snap shots, are controlled by computer. they snap images not based on a time interval or some other random event, but based on position. Per the GPS, the driveaw was listed as a road. Keep in mind, it's not google that makes the road map, but the city surveyor's office. Blame them.
When the vans turn around in ordinary driveways, or enter private communities who's roads are not included in GPS data, the cameras don't take pictures... If he parks in front of a starbucks and leaves the van running while his buddy refills their coffee, it takes 1 image, not dozens, since it's running in a computer and knows it has not moved...
Per the computer, that was not a driveway, so it snapped images. If he turned around in MY driveway, this would not have occurred since he would have been off the GPS indicated road.
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
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.
Obvious to you maybe after just read an article about it, but how obvious would it be to someone who just spent the past 7 hours staring at a slide show of strangers houses.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
It's probably cheaper to wait until someone complains and then remove it. Paying someone to review thousands of miles of Sunday driving gets expensive pretty quick.
Q. Why are the Borings suing Google and not the van drivers who committed the trespass?
A. The van drivers are paid $7/hour and Google is worth $25 Billion.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
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.
As a former Google Street View driver, I can tell you that many, many public roads go from paved to gravel and gravel to paved. Sometimes there are signs. Sometimes you follow the GPS-based map data until you are in someone's backyard, looking at a pool. The camera is automatic, so the surprised driver can't really do anything about it but turn around and go. Other times you can follow the road right through what seems to be private property. Public maps generally aren't very good, and people's assumptions about how a stranger percieves the clues of what is and isn't public are often wildly wrong. I had a lot of interesting conversations with mildly surprised (usually happily surprised) people. One couple was originally a little taken aback when I pulled into their driveway and showed them that the map said it was a public road that went through (probably before their mobile home was parked there), but after seeing it for themselves they offered a glass of wine (turned down, thanks, 'cause I was driving) and generally laughed for as long as they were in my rear-view mirror. Street View will be full of those Easter eggs.
It looked to me like there were spots, especially near where the private road forks into individual driveways. Also, I believe all cars have a "reverse" setting, enabling the use to drive the vehicle in the opposite direction it normally would.
Also, I didn't see anywhere in the PA statutes that say it's ok to trespass if you're just turning your car around...
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.
Q: Why are the van drivers there in the first place?
A: Because Google paid them to be.
You and everyone else who has posted similar things below you are arguing semantics and missing the point.
How many public roads lead directly *into* a person's garage? At some point, the road changes from public to private property. Would you think the safer assumption would be that the private property begins at the threshold of the garage or somewhere earlier? It's quite rare to buy a house without buying the lot around it. If you assume that the property line does begin somewhere before the garage, where would you naturally assume that to be? Well, luckily you have an obvious line between gravel and pavement to tell you.
I can understand these guys mistakenly driving down this family's driveway and then having nowhere to turn around until they got to the garage area. But then you've gotta delete the photos. You can't tell me these guys didn't know they were on private property at *some* point, and the obvious line is where the road changes from gravel to paved.
Google should then add a simple mechanism to the vans that allows the drivers to set a "last couple images are bad" marker. They turn into a driveway by accident or stop to refuel and as soon as they notice/are done, they press a button and the system sets a marker that tells the post-processing team that all images since the last turn are probably bad. The post-processing team can then just scan for those markers and closely examine the images preceding them; if the drivers pay a bit of attention that could cut down on images that shouldn't be in the database.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Clearly Google's vehicle was guilty of trespassing on the McKee's property. Once they realized what they had done, they should have erased the photos.
But since they didn't, I'd use the photos in a court case to sue the company for violating another person's private property.
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
Even if it's private property, so what? If a privately owned road doesn't tell you to keep out, you can enter. Furthermore, unless it's clearly and explicitly forbidden, you can take pictures on private property; you don't need to ask permission. And there are many forms of privately owned property where they owner can't forbid you to take pictures even if the want to. Finally, if a property runs up to you and tells you not to take pictures, all he can do is ask you to leave; he can't demand that you erase the pictures you have already taken.
Photography is an important part of a modern democracy and it needs to be protected; don't mislead people about where they supposedly can't take pictures.
It doesn't matter whether it's private property, if it doesn't clearly and explicitly prohibit photography, you can take photographs; you don't need to ask for permission.
Furthermore, property owners may not even be legally allowed to impose such restrictions; although these roads are privately owned, they are intended for unrestricted public access, which means that they may count as "public places" for the purpose of photography.
Google paid them to go to a specific lat/long. That location happens to be pricate property. So, yes, yes they did.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Oh please.
Did you bother to look at the pictures? It's clear that this an invasion of privacy. Here's a clue. Read the articles again and look at the pictures again, but replace "Google" with "Microsoft", then see if you have the same opinion on the matter.
Damn, some people will defend Google no matter what they do. Just because someone claims that they're not evil, doesn't make it so. In fact, those that feel the need to constantly say "We're not evil" are *more* likely to be so. (It's like whenever you meet someone that says over and over, "I'm not a racist", nine times out of ten, they are a racist.)
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
In that case, I guess no one is too blame. The driver can't erase photos, and the programmer is probably just dumping them to the central website without noticing he's taken pictures of private property. As simple as it sounds, I have to agree.
Sometimes the simplest explanation works best.
You can sue the driver for no noticing your hints.
You can sue the map-maker for not clearly marking your road as private property.
You can even sue the map-making company for not checking all the (weeks of) footage, before sending it to Google.
You can even sue Google for not removing the footage, after you asked them to remove it.
But, NOT ASKING and then spamming for ATTENTION is a waste of everyone's time.
I'm not here to defend Google, but if someone is doing something you don't like, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!
Don't just whine about it to other people.
"I was in love with a beautiful blonde once, dear. She drove me to drink. It's the one thing I am indebted to her for."
Utterly irrelevant. This is standard practice. Even if the drivers were violating their employment agreement, that's between them and Google. Don't make this out to be a grab for cash just cause it's Google. If any other situation where an employee of a company infringes on your rights, you'd be suing the company. You could also sue the employee personally, sure, but if you won you'd generally be waiting while they in turn sued their employer. I fail to see the problem here (as in, "suing Google, not van drivers").
And yet, there's no procedure for drivers to flag, using that same GPS map data, data that needs to be deleted for any number of reasons (anything from unintentional trespass to look, grisly accident scene)?!?
Yeah, good call, there's been several of these posts... "They had to go all the way up and turn around!" "Why, do Google vans not have a Reverse gear, or rear view mirrors, or side mirrors?"
That's not my problem - that's yours to deal with as the person potentially committing the infringement. Is that going to be your defense, "Well, hell, Your Honor, after a while, it all looks the same, you can't expect me to notice this kind of stuff, really, can you?"
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.
Yes. Translation:
Normal Person: For the last time, I'm pretty sure what's Google's doing is trespassing.
./ know-it-all: But Google's got what nerds crave. It's got street view.
./ user #2: So wait a minute. What you're saying is, you don't think that Google should trespass?
./ user #2: Not even on a 'private road'?
./ know-it-all: But Google's got what nerds crave.
./ user #2: Yeah, it's got street view.
./ user #2: Well, people take pictures of my house, and I don't mind.
./ know-it-all: Hey, that's good! Are you a lawyer or something?!
./ user #2: But Google's GOT what nerds crave.
./ user #3: Yeah. It's got street view.
./ know-it-all: It's what they do at Google.
./ user #2: Cuz Google's got street view.
Normal Person: Yes.
Normal Person: Well, I mean... A private road is a grey area maybe, but definitely not a driveway. But yeah, that's the idea.
Normal Person: Okay, look. The people that live in at least one of these houses are complaining. Google seems to be trespassing. Other people seem to think so, too. So I'm pretty sure that this Google stuff's not working, at least not the way they are currently doing it. Now I'm no technologist, but I do know that if you put yourself on private property, it's called trespassing.
Normal Person: Okay, look. You want to solve this problem, right? So why don't we just try to talk about it, okay, and not worry about what nerds crave?
Normal Person: What ARE the legal implications of driving a van around people's yards to make something called "street view"? Do any of you even know?
Normal Person: Yeah, but WHY do they do this at Google?!
Quite irrelevant.
If they don't have procedures to care for the fact that their employess have been spending 7 hours staring at a slide show of strangers' houses, they damned well have no business taking those pictures.
If you can not deal with the necessary fallout of your business practises, change business.
As simple as that.
May we live long and die out
Not only that, but Google chose to use the pictures - not the drivers. There are two issues here - the driver is tresspassing, but as pointed out, may not have been able to turn around, so this is arguable in any case (ie. no intent) - but its the publishing of the photos on the net that is the main issue - and THAT is wholely the responsibility of of Google's quality control. Google may have issues with whoever they contracted to do the driving, but thats between Google and the contractors - and has nothing to do with the owners of the property.
And just in case the Plat Book is in error, I always carry a theodolite and two surveyors in the trunk.
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Why do so many people keep saying that this is obvious, when it isn't? I am on a paved public road. I turn onto a gravel public road. Then I continue onto another paved road, which it turns out happens to be a private driveway. How is it at all obvious which, if any, of these transitions is the private/public line?
For the record, I know plenty of people whose homes have no driveway, with garages that open directly onto the street, or across a sidewalk onto the street, and front doors that open directly onto a sidewalk adjacent to the street with no private sidewalk approach.