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Google Says Complete Privacy Does Not Exist
schliz writes "In a submission to court, Google is arguing that in the modern world there can be no expectation of privacy. Google is being sued by a Pennsylvania couple after their home appeared on Google's Street View pages. The couple's house is on a private road clearly marked as private property." Here is our previous story about Google Street View privacy issues.
military installations, the CIA, the NSA, and other sensitive areas- just to see if there really is no privacy in the US.
Google is more or less correct. If people really want "true privacy" in today's world, then they really have to never leave their house, never access the internet, never buy anything with a credit card or debit card, and don't forget your tinfoil hat. However, knowing a little bit more about this case, if the property owners in question did have a 'private property' sign up in front of the road that Google went down, then they did trespass onto their property to take the photos. If that's true, then this case is closed. Plain and simple. You don't need any fancy shmancy explanations and definitions of "privacy" here. If there was no sign, then Google did nothing wrong.
This is what starts to happen when people don't bother to protect their privacy: the notion of privacy itself starts to vanish. If this argument flies, privacy will become a thing of the past, and people who to protect their own privacy will just be labeled as "paranoid weirdos."
Palm trees and 8
> There's a big difference in the detail available in most sat photos versus Street View. It'll be interesting to see what gets considered private
> or public. Currently, it seems it's okay if you can tell I have a black car but not that my front door's red.
So what happens once satellite photos are the same quality as photos taken from a few metres away?
Fuck you. If there's no such thing as privacy in the modern world, it's because fuckwit corps think they can do whatever they damn well please. Way to reveal yourself as one of them.
Google's submission discussed "complete privacy", not mere "privacy".
Clearly, we have rights to photograph private property if we do it from a public vantage point. The fact that this house is privately held has no bearing here.
The issue, it seems, is the impact of the "private road" sign. Does it mean permission must be granted before anyone, at any time, can use that road? Does the law argue that the "private road" sign compels all others to stay off that road?
And, if I was Google, I'd look into the degree to which that "private road" and that property receive any kind of public support. Are police allowed on it to provide protection? The fire department? Are there beneficial tax consequences involved for someone maintaining a private road? Are any public monies used in any way in relation to that road?
And, can the road's owners prove that they have maintained their privacy claim by prohibiting all others from using the road?
BTW, a driveway with a "no trespassing" sign is not the same as a "private road" with no such sign. You may call the police and your lawyer, but asserting a privacy claim is not the same as proving it.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I would go one step further. Here in California, we have hundreds of roads marked "Private road." If you don't allow anyone to drive on them. it would be crippling in many parts of the Santa Cruz mountains. You get used to routinely ignoring the signs when looking at homes and lots for sale because 90% of the time, they're on roads marked as "private", usually with an accompanying "No trespassing" sign. To a degree, by listing the property in MLS, the owner gave you implicit permission, I suppose, but still, it's rather silly to expect an ungated road to be treated as anything other than a public road. Heck, private roads without gates like that shouldn't even be allowed to exist. The county should be forced to take over repair and maintenance of every road in the county. Either that or everybody on that road should get a reduction in the property taxes that they pay to make up for the reduction in services.
The way I see it is this: you either have a private, gated community or you don't. If you don't, you have no real right to tell people they can't use the road as long as they aren't then trespassing into your yard. If we're talking about a driveway, that's completely different because it is not a shared resource (it only serves a single home), so the correct sign is "Private driveway. No Trespassing." Expecting people to not drive on a road merely because you didn't deed it over to the county is like expecting people not to walk from a public beach area onto the beach behind your house merely because you put a sign there. You're going from one similar area to another, and the area really shouldn't have any legal protection because it is a shared, semipublic resource.
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Its a principle you idiot. If everyone just accept that google invades their privacy, google will just continue.