Google Sued Over Privacy Invasion On Street View

mikkl666 writes "A couple from Pittsburgh has sued Google because a photo of their house appeared on Google Street View. They are demanding in excess of $25,000 to make up for the 'mental suffering' and the diminished value of their home. Their street is apparently marked with a 'Private Road' sign, and they claim that putting a photo of their property online is an 'intentional and/or grossly reckless invasion' of their privacy. Google, on the other hand, claims that this lawsuit is pointless since anyone can ask them to have pictures removed without legal action. We've previously discussed some of the privacy concerns surrounding Street View."

lol..

I just love it when people grab any occasion to try to sue as much money as they can from large (and rich) companies, no matter how ridiculous it sounds. A chance these companies also have dozens of lawyers for whenever that happens.

Opt out?

I don't like opt-out memberships. The ability for companies to get away with opt-out usually comes from legislation. Not simple company choice.

I don't like that defense

Telling people that there is no damage because you can ask for something to be removed is silly IMO, that doesn't cover the time it was up until the request was followed and I dislike the idea of opt-out in general, asking someone for permission should happen BEFORE acting, not just acting and telling people they have to come to you to revoke their permission.

Re:I don't like that defense

First, it appears that no attempt to request the images be removed was made.

Second, doing shit like this only makes it worse [wikipedia.org]. If there really was any concern over privacy then this is by far the worst thing you could do to protect it.

Third, I would love so hear how taking pictures of a property devalues it. At best you can charge them with trespassing since it was private property - a criminal charge which would probably be more effective at changing Google's policies than a civil suit - but you can't get any cash out of a criminal charge.

In other words, this has all the seemings of someone who decided to look up their own house on Street View and thought "free money!"
=Smidge=

Re:I don't like that defense

It's more like

"There is no damage".

Boom. End of sentence. I would say there is no expectation of privacy from outer space or from the street. It's not reasonable.

As for "Mental Anguish", I suffer a lot of mental anguish every day that I'm in traffic. Who do I sue? And only $25K for mental anguish. Either they didn't have a lot of anguish or they don't have a lot of mental.

As for the diminished value of their house, it sounds like they're looking for Google to reimburse them for the downturn in the market that has cut housing values from 1/4 to 3/4's (depending on where you live).

Overall, this is the kind of lawsuit that makes you think the world is overpopulated. On so many levels.

Re:I don't like that defense

My generation has really taken to heart the old adage "It's easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission". Just another symptom of our society's growing sense of entitlement and disrespect of others' personal property and privacy.

Re:I don't like that defense

Photography in the US is permitted in public places, and does not require permission in advance. From The Photographer's Bill of Rights [krages.com]:

The general rule in the United States is that anyone may take photographs of whatever they want when they are in a public place or places where they have permission to take photographs. Absent a specific legal prohibition such as a statute or ordinance, you are legally entitled to take photographs. Examples of places that are traditionally considered public are streets, sidewalks, and public parks.

Google is going above and beyond by offering to remove any objected photos, at their expense, and without the need to raise legal action.

Roads are considered public places. I don't know whether roads marked as private are considered public or not (it takes more than the posting of a sign to make something so), this probably depends on the municipality, and whether or not the road itself is actually private property (and as such they'd have to pay themselves for plowing and other maintenance). In that case, Google's mistake might have simply for their driver to have failed to notice the sign labeling it as private. In such a case, I think you'd have to prove Google knowingly and willingly chose to act in the face of knowledge that what they did was incorrect. Because this is such an unusual circumstance (very very few roads are private which don't have some sort of gate on the end) that the burden should be on the owners to protect themselves from unwitting violation of their atypical case.

Regardless, these people are exposing themselves to a serious Streisand Effect [wikipedia.org] by trying to make such a public issue of the complaint. If instead they had emailed Google and requested the removal, Google would have quietly complied, and no one would have even noticed. Guaranteed, if they see other people looking at their home as a way to devalue it (which I cannot see), then any publicity they generate for themselves will be far more damaging than the mere existence of an image mixed in among millions of others.

Re:I don't like that defense

... but you do treat the outside of your house with the expectation that others (random people) will look at it and admire it/you.

Don't go there.

Here's what makes this case different than the other StreetView suits... the Google van wasn't supposed to be on this road in the first place. A private road means that the owners of the road take no government funding or care for it, and therefore get to decide who they'll allow on it. Google wasn't wanted, so there's the problem.

Re:Don't go there.

Unless the street is posted "No trespassing" then I don't see how it makes much difference whether its a public or private street. Under PA law (ob. IANAL) if it isn't posted, you'uns can go there. By the way, my guess is that these people moved to Pittsburgh from out of state. PA folks aren't very lawsuit-happy in general.

Who's fault is it?

I dunno it seems like a case of bad judgment on the driver of the mapping vehicle. If you look at the pictures it seems like they drove right up to their garage, taking pictures the whole time.

It also seems like provider of the maps is also at fault, if you follow along on Google maps you can see that the street appears to extend all the way to their garage [google.com].

But, there doesn't seem to be any "private road" labeling on the map nor was their any sign visible when I followed the street via Streetview to their house (though they did delete the offending pictures, so maybe the sign was there?)

Regardless though, I would expect that the drivers of these vehicles would know better then to keep the pictures they took of a property while parked in front of a garage.

They Should Sue The County Too

Allegheny County has a real estate assessment website which has pictures of every house in the county. Including the Borings:
http://www2.county.allegheny.pa.us/RealEstate/Image.asp?CurrBloLot=0823E00136000000&Street=Oakridge [allegheny.pa.us]

Re:Diminished Value?

Presumably they see some of the value in their house being in the fact that it is on a "private" road. Google's images demonstrate how little that is really worth, thus lowering the value of their property.

Re:Diminished Value?

the fact that it is on a "private" road. Google's images demonstrate how little that is really worth

So in other words, they're angry at Google for pointing out their own stupidity?

Re:Diminished Value?

I don't know about the legal status of a "private road" but if I'm on public property, I can take a picture of your house as long as it can be seen from public property. It's not against the law. The only things that are exempt from this are government and military locations.

Private Roads

In Texas a private road is defined as one maintained privately, as opposed to a public road that is maintained by a government (municipal, county, state, or federal). Usually the residents who use the road share the responsibility to maintain it.

I assume in Pennsylvania it's the same. If you don't want people driving on a road, you need to mark it as such. Put a gate, or a sign forbidding unauthorized access.

Re:Diminished Value?

Should they not seek to prosecute Google for trespassing then?

~Dan

Re:Diminished Value?

They are [thesmokinggun.com].

Re:Diminished Value?

If you look at Google maps [google.com], you can see quite clearly that their house is at the end of a private road. The Google road crew drove onto private property, continuing to take high resolution photographs before turning round and going back the way they came.

A road sign clearly indicated that this was a private road. Maybe Google's road crew didn't understand English, took a wrong turning, or their maps were out of date. Since they took photographs every 10 metres or so, having a photograph of their property is not going to affect its value by any significant amount.

This really does amount to trespass and invasion of privacy. Any individual is free to walk the streets of their neighborhood and take photographs, so long as they don't enter private property. But as soon as they wander into their neighbors driveways and gardens, neighbors would be justified in calling the Police, and getting them to be given a warning or to be arrested.

Re:Diminished Value?

If you look at Google maps, you can see quite clearly that their house is at the end of a private road.

No. I looked at Google maps, and all I can see quite clearly is that the house is at the end of a road. There is no indication that it's private at all.

A road sign clearly indicated that this was a private road.

Really? I couldn't see that sign from the link you provided.

This really does amount to trespass and invasion of privacy.

You haven't proven that, but assuming that there is a sign, and the mappers were guilty of tresspassing, how the hell do you explain the absurd charges?

If this really was about tresspassing, you'd think that the property owners would have sued for that, instead of this "mental anguish" and "reduced property value" bullshit.

Re:Diminished Value?

After seeing the map, I think the owners have a point -- the private road is essentially their driveway, and they have a line of trees screening their house from outside view. These people want privacy, and Google violated it. I don't know if it's worth $25,000, but on top of the incident where the Google Street View van drove onto a military base in contravention of Google's rules, I think this is a sign that the people taking the pictures are inadequately trained and lack common sense.

Re:Diminished Value?

http://www2.county.allegheny.pa.us/RealEstate/Search.asp [allegheny.pa.us]

Allegheny County already put all this information online, years ago.

Also I'm not sure how you can "clearly see" it's a private road. Since Google posted detailed pictures of the area you would think we could see this "private road" sign somewhere, no? I just used street view to pan around and all I could find was a single wooden post with "Oakridge Ln" painted on it (where it meets Reis Run Road.) In fact you can still follow Oakridge all the way up to their house before google says "This image is no longer available" and still see no posted sign.

Here's another picture of their house:

http://www2.county.allegheny.pa.us/RealEstate/Image.asp?CurrBloLot=0823E00136000000&Street=oakridge [allegheny.pa.us]

The people claim Allegheny County took their picture from a public road which, judging by the picture, is the same road Google was on.

Also how's this for invasion of privacy: They bought their 1 bedroom house in 2006 for $163,000 and it sits on 1.82 acres of land. It gets a D+ rating. It has no AC, 1 bathroom, and 984 sq. ft. of living area.

That's all available on Allegheny County's assessment website [allegheny.pa.us]. Along with a nice picture.

My guess is they saw this on Google, ran to Home Depot for a private road sign, and decided to cash in.

Re:Diminished Value?

The UK has similar "Right to Roam" legislation which applies to many pathways and scenic areas. It's something to consider when buying a house or even office space in a business park. You find out that the local residents use your driveway or car-park as a short cut to the local supermarket because 1800 years, a Roman goat-herder went to court to maintain a right-of-way between the town market and the local pasture.

Darwin Effect of 'Diminished Value'

I did a project more than a decade ago with EMTs and other first responders about vehicle INS systems ( before GPS became ubiquitous ). The drivers jokingly ( or maybe not ) noted that the eventual real effect of people that had overgrown vegitation, concealed drives, locked gates, non-existent or faded curb numbers, missing or angled house numbers and unlit or burned out porch lights was that response time effectively doubles or triples with a corresponding effect on medical survival rates. As society becomes more dependent of spatial technologies like StreetView, a similar counter-survival friction will occur as Fedex, Dominos, and EMTs are delayed by uncertain spots in their data. So that EMT's opinion was that eventually these 'hiding' people would be selected against and be left in the shallow end of the gene pool.

Re:I warned them

You have no expectation of privacy with regard to Google Street View photographs, or any other "shutterbug" snapping pictures on your street, provided the photos were taken from public property, and were not done in such a way as to grossly invade your space (telephoto lenses into your bathroom window, for example).

Here's a good article that points to guidelines from people who go to court to defend their members' rights to do what is in their rights (Google's Street View team would be wise to join up):

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/andrewkantor/2005-12-29-camera-laws_x.htm [usatoday.com]

From what I understand about the equipment and methods in use by the Google Street View project, I wouldn't expect them to be in violation of the "zoom lenses" provisions in any "invasion" statute in these states.