Lawsuit on Google Street View thrown out

(image found on arstechica)
Worried about Googles camera eye taking photos of you and your home. Well get over it says a US District Court Judge that just dismissed the lawsuit pending on Google.

The home of Aaron and Christine Boring as seen on Google Street View. (brisbanetimes)

"A ruling issued Wednesday by Judge Amy Reynolds Hay in a Pennsylvania district court states that Google's Street View mapping service is not an invasion of privacy. Judge Reynolds has dismissed a lawsuit against the search giant and has denied a request for injunctive relief that sought to block Google from publishing Street View imagery.

The lawsuit was filed last year by Aaron and Christine Boring, who contend that Google violated their privacy when a Street View camera car drove past a "private road" sign in their driveway in order to take pictures of their house.

Google contended that "complete privacy does not exist" and pointed out that photos of the home and floor plans are already available to the public on the Internet from the website of the Allegheny County assessor's office.

Google also argued that it already provides adequate measures to protect privacy by making it possible for individuals to ask to have pictures of their property removed from Street View. As we noted in our previous coverage, this is consistent with Google's opt-out approach to YouTube and other websites--they don't proactively review or ask permission to publish each piece of content, but provide a framework for requesting content removal.

Judge Reynolds sided with Google and concluded that the Street View service doesn't meet the criteria for an unlawful intrusion. Case law precedents define an actionable intrusion as one that causes "mental suffering, shame, or humiliation to a person of ordinary sensibilities." Reynolds doesn't believe that sufficient evidence was provided to demonstrate that Street View can cause such damage.

"While it is easy to imagine that many whose property appears on Google's virtual maps resent the privacy implications, it is hard to believe that any—other than the most exquisitely sensitive—would suffer shame or humiliation. The Plaintiffs have not alleged facts to convince the Court otherwise," the Judge wrote in the decision.

The Judge also pointed out that the Borings have not taken steps to have the images removed from Street View through Google's opt-out process and have, in fact, decreased their own privacy by drawing attention to themselves with the lawsuit. They did not file the suit under seal, which would have minimized exposure.

"'Googling' the name of the Borings' attorney demonstrates that publicity regarding this suit has perpetuated dissemination of the Borings' names and location, and resulted in frequent re-publication of the Street View images," Judge Reynolds notes. "The Plaintiffs' failure to take readily available steps to protect their own privacy and mitigate their alleged pain suggests to the Court that the intrusion and the their suffering were less severe than they contend."

Google's ambitious goal of indexing all of the world's information raises many questions about the role of privacy in the Internet age. General expectations have certainly diminished as more personal information becomes available on the Internet, but one could argue that much of this information was already public in some capacity. What has changed is the ease with which it can be remotely accessed. Google has attempted to mitigate the erosion of privacy inherent in Street View by blurring faces and providing easy opt-out tools. For now, that seems to be enough to satisfy the law.

So it looks like we will all be ready for our close up whether we want it or not.

Smile you might be on Google....

Judge throws out lawsuit against Google Street View (arstechnica)
Judge Dismisses Case Against Google's Street View (PCmag.com)
Judge Dismisses Boring Lawsuit Against Google (Channel Web)
Google wins Street View privacy case (brisbane times)