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.'"

Comments

roadkill

[alain94040]

My favorite Google Street View story: Google Maps Car Hits Deer.

Just like the settlement it reached with book authors, Google could give $66 to each homeowner photographed by StreetView. We could call that agreement the Google stimulus package :-)

There is a serious discussion to be had about privacy rights and Google's objective to picture, reference and catalog everything. Some inside Google take the "do no evil" to heart. Street View blurs faces and license plates.

Good, but I wish it didn't have to be voluntary. We know what voluntary compliance by various industries lead to. That's why privacy laws have to set clear boundaries. In the dismissed lawsuit, note that the Google driver did enter a private road by mistake. Mistakes in sensitive privacy situations can be very damaging.

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Re:roadkill

[AlecC]

There are some places - the Scottish Islands are one - where the crime rate is low enough that people routinely leave their houses unlocked. Neighbours can enter the house, e.g. to borrow and return things, at will. Likewise car keys are left in the ignition so that if the car is in the way anybody can move it.

I realise that it is impossibly idealistic to expect this to work in cities. Nonetheless, I wish that the default belief was that you *should* be able to leave your property unguarded, and that city life is, in this sense, a falling off from ideal standards. To institutionalise that idea that the default is that anything not locked or tied down is "fair game" is to bring in a grimmer society, in my opinion.

Re:Tresspassing no longer exists?

[Anonymous Coward]

A private road doesn't necessarily mean that it's private property. It just means that maintenance of the road is not the responsibility of the local city/county, etc. Of course, the road could be on private property, in which case it seems some kind of no trespassing sign or a gate would be in order.

Re:Copyright infringement?

[langelgjm]

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.

Because we signed the Berne Convention, we recognize copyright in architectural works. However, we make exceptions for photographs, etc., of buildings that are in public places.

That would just be silly and expensive.

[falconwolf]

Nothing more.

Nothing more if you don't care about privacy.

One of the first things we learned in the photography class I took in college was that photographing and selling the photos of someone's house is illegal in some places without the owner signing a release form, just as it's illegal to photograph people who are clearly identifiable in public and selling those photos. The only tyme it is legal when a release form is not signed but the photo is sold is if it is used as part of an editorial. Now, it may be legal in some places but not everywhere.

Falcon

Re:That would just be silly and expensive.

[Ash Vince]

.... just as it's illegal to photograph people who are clearly identifiable in public and selling those photos.

Yet there is an entire industry that does just this to people in the public eye. Is there some legal exemption for people who have been previously in same lame film or made a pop song?

Or are you in fact talking complete and utter rubbish.

If there was such a law you can bet people like Brad Pitt and Britney Spears would be using it regularly to get some privacy from the Paparazzi.

There is only one law I can think of that this would break, and that MIGHT be Sharia Law, but since I am not an expert on the Qur'an I am not even sure of that.

No key yet.

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in the United States. When I was growing up (I'm in my 40s) we did not lock our house. And to this day not only don't I lock my door, but couldn't tell you where there's a key to my house (or even if we have one). And I owned cars for 20 years before I realized car keys could be removed. My entire key ring consists of one office key and nothing else.

I've never been robbed, but I'd like to think that the savings in "key hunting" time and frustration over the course of my entire life has long since paid for everything in my house. So if we lost it all now, I'd still be ahead in the deal.

Are you saying it's not like that where you live? Well, not to put too fine a point on it: you live in a lousy place.

Re:So does this mean that...

[swillden]

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.

I don't know of any jurisdiction in the US where someone has a legal right to shoot you for ordinary trespassing. Not even Texas. Many states have "Castle Doctrine" laws, which say that if you break into a residence the owner can shoot you, but that's entirely different from walking on someone's fields.

Further, no US state that I'm aware of (and I've read the relevant laws of a lot of them) allows trespassing charges to be brought unless it has been made clear to the trespasser that he or she should not be there, either by a personal warning, a fence or signage (that is sufficiently prominent and placed so that the person should have seen it) indicating that trespassing is not allowed.

If there is no fence, and no signs and you trespass, then the owner can ask you to leave. If you don't, you're trespassing. If you do, you were technically trespassing but cannot be cited or charged.

In general, in the US, you can go anywhere you want as long as it's not fenced off or posted "no trespassing". And anyone who shoots you for going where you want is breaking the law unless you're breaking and entering.

Check your local laws to be sure what I'm saying is right in your jurisdiction, but I'll be shocked if it's not.