Google Scores Partial Victory In Street View Lawsuit
- by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, January 29, 2010
An appellate court gave its blessing to Google's Street View this week, ruling that the feature did not violate the privacy of a married couple in Pittsburgh by displaying a photo of their home and pool.
"No person of ordinary sensibilities would be shamed, humiliated, or have suffered mentally as a result of a vehicle entering into his or her ungated driveway and photographing the view from there," the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in a decision issued this week.
But the ruling wasn't a complete victory for Google, because the court also said the couple, Aaron and Christine Boring, can pursue a trespass claim against the company. They alleged that a Google van drove on a private road, ignoring a no-trespassing sign, to photograph their home. "If proven, that is a trespass, pure and simple," the court said.
At the same time, the appellate judges acknowledged that any damage award in the case might prove to be very small. "Of course, it may well be that, when it comes to proving damages from the alleged trespass, the Borings are left to collect one dollar and whatever sense of vindication that may bring, but that is for another day," the court wrote.
Google said in a statement that it still believes the lawsuit is without merit. "Since the ruling upheld the dismissal of everything but the trespass claim, we're pleased with the court's decision," the company said.
The appellate court said in its ruling that people can only sue for invasion of privacy for actions that would be "highly offensive to a reasonable person" -- and that photographing the outside of a home doesn't meet that standard.
Santa Clara University law professor Eric Goldman says the appellate judges indicated they thought the Borings overreacted by filing a privacy lawsuit in the case. "The legal system isn't going to tolerate their overreaction," he adds.
Cyberlawyer Venkat Balasubramani of Seattle adds that courts might view the situation differently if companies use a high-powered zoom lens to photograph the inside of homes rather than simply shoot the exterior.
Gee, sometimes lawyers are so unimaginative. Here are some reasons:
- Mrs. Boring (formerly Mrs. Something Else) used to be married to an abusive kook, who's now out of prison after ten years, had no trouble perusing public records (also via Google) to trace his ex-wife, and now has imagery of her (private, gated, off-the-main-road) house and grounds that he can use in planning to kidnap their children.
- Every burglar in the neighborhood now knows there's a box-hedge partially obscuring the Boring's side-door from the road, making it possible to apply a pry-bar to that port of entry without fear of observation.
- Creepy salespeople for roofing services, chimney services, window services, gutter services, garden services and pool services can now put brand names to all of the Boring's domestic detail-work, and "call smart."
- Bonus item: The Borings are rewarded for protesting this intrusion by having their family name snickered at by marketing types on both coasts.
Personally, I think we need a lot more of these lawsuits, or a whomping-big class-action suit to make this sort of intrusion stop.
What is it about folks that they don't _get_ why the infinitely finer-grained gathering and systematic online multi-criterion databasing of "all the world's information, including stuff that's really nobody's business" is scarily Orwellian and potentially dangerous?
What incidental benefit do the Borings obtain to compensate them for the acquisition and indexing of their "information that, while it may not be 'private' in the legal sense, is really nobody's business?" I can think of plenty of commercial apps and services that might be enabled or enriched by access to Google's spy photography, but nothing for the Borings. Why don't people _get_ that there are ethical problems with a formula that abstracts intangible value from private individuals without allowing them control or offering them compensation? (Behavioral Targeting people, take note.)
How come I live in a country where, at the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars a year, thousands of lobbyists protect every kook's God-given right to own an arsenal of military-class firearms, but nobody stands up to protest the quiet, commerce-driven death of simple privacy?