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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.'"

7 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 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.

    2. 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.

  2. 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).

  3. 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.

  4. 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.'"
  5. 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.