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.

--
Join a FairSoftware Project: share the revenue, be part of important decisions

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.