Woman Sues Google Over Street View Shots of Her Underwear

Kittenman writes "The Telegraph (and several US locals) are covering a story about a Japanese woman who had her underwear on the line while the Google car went past. She is now suing Google: 'I was overwhelmed with anxiety that I might be the target of a sex crime,' the woman told a district court. 'It caused me to lose my job and I had to change my residence.'"

Comments

Re:Ugh, this again?

[darkstar949]

Might not have been the front yard. In Japan it's actually unusually to have a dryer so people will dry their clothing outside on a patio or balcony.

More Details. NOT a regular Streetview Photo...

[kumanopuusan]

Someone took a picture of her underwear and posted it on Google Streetview...

Here's the original article.

From the original article in the Mainichi Shinbun, "It seems that someone posted the picture of her underwear on the internet.[...] She said, "If it had been an exterior view of the apartment that's understandable, but that a photo of my underwear drying on the veranda should appear is strange no matter how you look at it."

Again, this isn't just a case of something weird showing up on Streetview, according to the woman in question. Her paranoia is a little more understandable considering that she claims someone took a picture of her underwear and went to the trouble of posting it where she would likely find it. Being concerned about harassment or stalking isn't completely unreasonable.

Some other details that were left out of the English article include that the woman in question is from Fukuoka City in Fukuoka, that she's in her twenties, that she was fired from the hospital were she was working, that she lived alone at the time of the incident, that she found the photo this Spring, that she filed suit in November in Fukuoka District Court and that opening arguments were heard on December 15th. As of December 15th, Google was hurrying to verify the facts of the case.

There was a 2channel thread about the story that referred to it as "MyPantyView," but unfortunately Slashdot's Japanese counterparts had no comment on the matter.