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Judge Dismisses Google Street View Case
angry tapir writes "A judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a Pennsylvania family against Google after the company took and posted images of the outside of their house in its Maps service. The lawsuit, filed in April 2008, drew attention because it sought to challenge Google's right to take street-level photos for its Maps' Street View feature. Judge Amy Reynolds Hay from the US District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania granted Google's request for dismissing the lawsuit because 'the plaintiffs have failed to state a claim under any count.'"
That would just be silly and expensive. Nothing more.
Anonymous Coward
Google driver did enter a private road by mistake. There is now available a very sophisticated bit of technology that is guaranteed to ensure that this never happens again. I believe the scientific name for the device is a "gate".
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I agree that mistakes in sensitive privacy situations can be damaging. But this particular plaintiff, the court found, failed to show that it was damaging in their situation, which is the requirement to sue for damages. They claimed they suffered $25,000 in emotional anguish, and the court held that they didn't provide any plausible legal arguments to support that damage claim.
If we do think, as a matter of public policy, that even harmless violations should be penalized in order to discourage them, there's a way to do that: pass a law that establishes a fine for such violations. The fine, of course, should go to the government, not the plaintiff, unless the plaintiff actually was harmed. Public policy via, you know, actual laws and law enforcement, not ambulance-chasing lawyers and "mental-anguish"-inventing plaintiffs.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
No.
We can not afford to continue down the vein of 'If it isn't locked, then you deserve what happens to you' line of thinking.
It's crap, it's harmful, and it only empowers criminals, and insurance companies...but I repeat myself.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I bet if I stood out on the street and took pictures of their house and posted them on my blog they wouldn't notice or care. But Google has lots of cash, so they sue them.
I worry about Google knowing too much about me, but not about them taking a picture of the outside of my house.
Think Deeply.
The idea is just wrong. The very concept of local and state planning requirements puts the external view of your property as owned by the community around you, as they are the ones who must see it and their property values in turn are affected by it. This goes for commercial as well as residential and of course government properties. Anybody can see as it is on public display and anybody by extension can preserve a memory of it either upon a biological, digital or printed form.
Google certainly should be required to blank out parts of the image that show internal views, perhaps even people and vehicle registration plates but the external view of your property is something that is on show to the public. A blatant grab for money, mainly by the lawyer who of course profited by their 'advice' to their client. In Australia google was given a hard time for missing streets, this likely does relate to the greater sense of community in Australia and far stricter local and state planning controls and a much more developed idea of community ownership of the shared street scape.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
could you make a copyright claim about photos of your house under U.S. Copyright law, as a "3-D work of art"?
No. Taking a picture of your house isn't "copying" it. Taking the plans of your house and building an exact copy of it _might_ be a violation of copyright.
Just thinking this couple didn't think creatively enough here for the proper law that could be used for a suit.
No, the couple are just money grubbers looking for a payday from someone with deep pockets. Sometimes people just have no case.
AccountKiller
No. We can not afford to continue down the vein of 'If it isn't locked, then you deserve what happens to you' line of thinking. It's crap, it's harmful, and it only empowers criminals, and insurance companies...but I repeat myself.
Do you care to explain why? I think it is perfectly reasonable to drive down someone's driveway, and unless they tell me to leave, post notices prohibiting it, or make the drive inaccessible. There are certainly harmless and perfectly legitimate reasons to enter another's property. Why institute a blanket prohibition?
You're an idiot for leaving your door open, and the person who took it is a thief who deserves fines and jail time. Blame and fault are not zero-sum games.
We can not afford to continue down the vein of 'If it isn't locked, then you deserve what happens to you' line of thinking.
But there is two sides to things here.
Yes, you can't have a blanket "if it isn't locked" type of rule, because that would lead to chaos.
However, you can't have a blanket rule the other way too far either.
I mean, if you were wandering about outside some evening, and accidentally walked on someones private property that you didn't realize was theirs but thought was still public... What are you to do when you discover your mistake?
Most people would leave if told of that fact. You say 'whoops, my bad' and go away off the private property back the way you came.
I don't believe we need to make that person a criminal for such a small and easily fixable mistake.
I don't know, i wasn't there, but it could easily have been just that type of mistake as it is to be a malicious attack on someones privacy by the Google van.
I'm fairly sure when asked that Google does remove photos people are in. That is similar to saying 'whoops, our bad, we will fix it' to me.
Maybe I'm missing something here for a reason the Google van drivers aren't getting the benefit of the doubt?
If only common sense reigned, this would be so. See ASMP's page on photographing public buildings; not every building is impacted, but I've seen cases where museums and the like claimed that the architecture of the building itself constitutes a work of art, and that photography of the same was forbidden.
And what if you are in the country and there isnt anything to mark it as a private driveway rather than a side street? Pretty common where I live.
I disagree. Approaching someone's door [almost] always requires stepping onto their private property without their prior consent. Until that is not the norm, you cannot institute a blanket ban on the practice.
That would just be silly and expensive. Nothing more.
Lawsuits are very often silly and expensive too, but you're right, that would if anything just alert people that they might be able to get more money.
What an inane straw man you've created. Does anyone think, "if I can see it it is mine?" Of course not. If I park my car on the side of a (public) road or in my (private) driveway, the theft of it is the same crime. No one seriously argues that taking a parked car is "okay" because it's in a public place. The only question is whether there are privately owned places that are publicly accessible. And the answer in most places is an emphatic YES. That includes driveways, front walkways, etc. But it does NOT follow from that that the users of those spaces then somehow get rights over that place. It remains privately-owned, and a random person can't, for instance, remove the paving stones from in front of my house without expecting legal consequences. It's easy enough to keep the two sets of rights separate, unless you are willfully obtuse.
.sig withheld by request
So you're saying if I end up at a dead end, I shouldn't use someone's drive to turn around? Many people have short driveways. Sorry, try again.
That stupid car shows up on my private property and they'll be lucky to leave with all their blood.
I've heard that in several european countries, Scotland for one, there is no law against walking onto someone else's land, provided you don't damage it. It seems a bit more complicated and debatable than that, but it seems clear that you can hike through someone's farmland and they have no legal right to shoot you. Not the case obviously in the US. What's with our trespassing obsession? I step foot on your land, you'll injure me just because you can? Is it that we think everyone is out to get us?
Look at us getting modded down by google fanboys.
Fuck privacy, so long as the company you like is breaching it, right?
If Bush did this, we would have +5 Insightful.
This is killing my faith in slashdot.
is that the couple requested Google remove photos of the home which Google complied. Yet the couple still claimed "damages"
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Question: Can I take lots of pictures of people in public, arrange them, put them on a website and then collect ad revenue?
I am a mature and civil adult that will defend privacy to great extent; that is all. If I woke up in the middle of the night and you happened to be in my home
Oh, by privacy you mean safety. Because yes, certainly someone was in your house without your knowledge or permission they could be a threat.
Here we thought you were freaked out by something trivial like someone standing on the street taking pictures that included your house.
Hah hah. How dumb that would be.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, explains our violent, gun-crazy culture here in the good ole USofA. Paranoia, insecurity and materialistic tendencies--mixed with a dash of nationalism, and some whacked out views on gun rights...voila!
You know, our daughters used to be able to go door-to-door and sell Girl Scout cookies, but now days, they are more likely to be assaulted than a homeowner is. You privacy freaks suffer from a completely out-of-proportion reaction to a made-up threat. It's like wearing a parachute on a commercial flight, or wearing a motorcycle helmet while driving your car.