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Woman Sues Google Over Street View Shots of Her Underwear

Posted by samzenpus on from the airing-your-clean-laundry dept.

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.'"

15 of 417 comments (clear)

  1. Common sense says... by Drakkenmensch · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... don't leave them in public view to begin with?

    1. Re:Common sense says... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Common sense says there's no need for a company to go around the world ignoring local rules, laws or even society conventions, taking pictures to put online, with the pure motive of selling more adverts.

    2. Re:Common sense says... by Volante3192 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Common sense says taking a picture from a publically accessable location is fair game. After that the rest of your argument falls apart.

    3. Re:Common sense says... by MoonBuggy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Even if we accept that point of view (and I'm really not sure that I agree), the next step is to examine the reasoning she gave to the court: "I was overwhelmed with anxiety that I might be the target of a sex crime". That makes no fucking sense. None whatsoever. She thinks that if someone sees a picture of bra on a washing line (which they could've seen while walking down the street), they're going to find and assault her?

      The only way that it makes any sense is in the context (as given by the article) of her mental illness: "The suit claims her existing obsessive-compulsive disorder was worsened by the anxiety brought on by the photo, as she feared that everything she was doing throughout the day was being secretly recorded.". Taking that into account, I do sympathise with her problems, but Google can't reasonably be held responsible for them.

    4. Re:Common sense says... by Dachannien · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Japan is where there are huge problems with men groping teenage girls on the train, to the point where there are "women only" cars now. And you're telling us that nobody in Japan would dare look at this woman's panties drying on a line?

    5. Re:Common sense says... by NicknamesAreStupid · · Score: 3, Insightful

      With advanced technology from Asia, Choocle (a fictitious Chinese Google) could drive machines around that could see through the walls of our homes. That might be perfectly acceptable in their culture and 'legal' here (as soon as they 'donate' to the right politicians). I'm sure we'd get use to it, too, just like the TSA 'inspections'. We should also get use to eating dogs.

    6. Re:Common sense says... by spun · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's not a corner case. Many localities have differing regulations concerning photography. You think all laws are sensible? FFS, there are places where there are still laws on the books prohibiting you from putting squirrels in your pants for the purposes of betting. If you think the law is about "common sense" you may be in for a rude shock when you travel.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photography_and_the_law

      --
      - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
  2. Expectation of Privacy by Nailer235 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It seems hard to imagine that the woman expected her delicates to stay completely private when she hung them up for the entire world to see.

    1. Re:Expectation of Privacy by enderjsv · · Score: 3, Insightful

      How would that even work? No. I think trying to somehow distinguish between regular public and internet public is kind of dumb. Here's a good rule of thumb. Live your public life as though everything you do will end up on the internet.

    2. Re:Expectation of Privacy by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There's "private". Then there's "public". But then there's "on the Internet", which is a whole different ball of wax.

      No, it isn't. "On the Internet" is where you should assume everything "public" will end up. Or put another way, you should always assune the whole world is watching anything you do in public. This was a good idea before the Internet, and it's a better idea now.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    3. Re:Expectation of Privacy by clone52431 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There's "private". Then there's "public". But then there's "on the Internet", which is a whole different ball of wax.

      Not for long. Get used to it... I don’t see the trend changing.

      --
      Distributed Denial of APK: It takes 15 seconds to reply to him anonymously, but wastes tons of his time if we all do it.
  3. Mental Illness by MozeeToby · · Score: 4, Insightful

    '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.'

    Even ignoring the fact that the woman's underwear was apparently visible from the street in the first place and it never bothered her. This reeks of unhealthy paranoia to me, is Google really responsible for one woman's mental issues? Granted, this thinking is exactly what the modern media creates, the idea that the world is filled with kidnappers, rapists, and violence. It's ironic that there are fewer murders than ever in US history, the kidnapping rate is lower than it was in 1940, and the overall violent crime rate sets new record lows every year (maybe not since the recession, but I haven't heard).

  4. More like overwhelmed with anxiety by BeanThere · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... that she might miss out on a chance to sue a big company for a whole lot of money she doesn't deserve, by feigning distress. I'm sure nobody involved thinks it's anything other than BS, but they're probably hoping Google will settle.

  5. Re:So? by amicusNYCL · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If you have to add a bunch of text to get around the lameness filter, maybe you should reconsider posting your lame post.

    --
    "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
  6. Time to play Devil's Advocate by gman003 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So far, everyone seems to be concluding that this woman is some sort of nut and/or lawsuit-happy money-grabber. Honestly, I agree with that given the evidence shown so far, but everyone deserves some level of defense.

    This woman is making at least one claim that can be tested - that she lost her job due to this. It would be rather simple to find out if this was the case - ask her ex-boss if he fired her over them, find out if she was shunned by coworkers over the images, etc. Most cases of people suing over trivialities involve less testable claims. As such, either she's not good at trolling the legal system, or she's got more of a case than we've assumed. After all, Japan is a much different culture than America or Europe - something like this could actually be a big deal over there. I honestly don't know. So, I'm going to wait for more info before making any sort of final judgement.