We’ve seen Google Street View take some images before that obviously invade on the privacy of individuals, but it looks like they are at it again! Google is actually in the middle of a lawsuit started by a Pittsburgh couple who noticed that their house had made its way onto Google Street View. No problem, right? I mean there are a lot of houses on Google Street View, which is kinda the point of the service.
Well, this one is a little different. In order for the house to be captured the car snapping the 3D imagery had to travel down a private driveway… and they did. As seen in the series of images to the right, the Street View car started on a public gravel road which turned into a private paved driveway. They continued driving all the way up to the three-car garage of the home before turning around, and continued to capture the imagery the entire time.
The Smoking Gun has more snapshots of what was on Google Street View before being pulled down. Now it just has solid black imagery in place of the photos that were once there, which comes as no surprise since Google is getting sued over it.
What do you think they’ll capture next?
The Smoking Gun [via Consumerist]
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Tags: Google, Web Sites, Google Maps, Lawsuit, Photos
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They are suing for $25K which likely won’t even cover their legal fees. But I love this part from the Smoking Gun:
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you America: the land of outrageous lawsuits!
Come’on. All they did was put a picture of the house. “Oh no, my house is online, I’m ruined!” Get a life.
I read this on Slashdot a few days ago, and thought it was just another attempt to pull a fast 25k off Google. But looking at the photos, I see Google really have pushed it. Fair enough if they went up the drive by accident, but what idiot decided to put these online? They actually go in to the house’s drive!
Still I think 25k in damages has lost any credibility in their claim. I doubt it would devalue their house by that much, and if they had just asked Google to remove them then they would have gone silently. Now they’re plastered in to internet history.
This could happen out here given it sometimes difficult to determine when a private drive stars off a dirt road. Of course a good clue is these private drives are usually paved. But now that Maricopa & Pinal Counties are trying to make dirt roads illegal, it could be more difficult.
It is defintiely understandable how it happened, but what’s not understandable is why they uploaded the images.
Outrageous lawsuits are becoming an all too common thing, aren’t they? I can see why someone is upset, but all it would take is contacting Google to have them take it down, not a full-blown lawsuit.
I read about this in full detail on the Consumerist, sounds like a scam for money.
Google is becoming rude, cheap. Has it ever been otherwise? Looks like this smart-ass company considers the planet as its oyster. I think Google, with business like this case, with affairs like DoubleClick, appears to be what it really is : a smart joker.
Yep. And it’s just a picture of the house, what is the harm in it? It’s not like THIER photos were taken.
The Street View van takes thousands of photos every time it goes out. Google would be wasting its time searching for little things like this.
I wonder if this couple realizes that their house is also on Google Maps.
The big deal with this situation is that the car clearly drove up someone’s driveway, a rather long driveway too. You wouldn’t think those cars go up driveways all too often, so removing the images if they do mistaken a driveway for a road should be simple.