A Pittsburgh couple has sued Google seeking the removal of photographs that were a little to up close and personal for their tastes.
The couple, Aaron and Catherine Boring, have succeeded in getting the photos yanked from the site, but the industrious minds over at the Smoking Gun found another even more intrusive set of photos taken by the search giant.
The home of Janet and George McKee is the only property on Goldenbrook Lane, a narrow, gravel path off Oakleaf Lane, a two-way street. The McKee residence is at the end of Goldenbrook Lane, which the family was able to name at the time their home was built in 1993. As the “Street View” images show, a Google vehicle–outfitted with a roof-mounted camera taking 360-degree images–drove down the gravel path and onto the paved driveway leading to the McKee home. The Google car continued past the steps leading to the McKees’s front door and came to a stop outside the house’s three-car garage (and next to the family’s trampoline and portable basketball rim). Taking photos all the time, the Google vehicle was squarely on private property, a fact that presumably should have been apparent when the gravel path became paved.
Janet McKee, who was unaware of the “Street View” images until contacted by TSG, said that it was “a little bit creepy to think of someone filming our home without me knowing about it.”
And it was probably even creepier when the Smoking Gun called to compliment her on the family basketball hoop.
Oh, who the hell are we kidding. We’re just looking for an excuse to post this picture again.
Google Street View, you are the source of endless amusement.
Warning: Google Is In Your Driveway! [The Smoking Gun]
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@CMU_Bueller:
so Having your private property showcased online for anyone to see isnt damage? Isnt invasion of privacy… “damage”. If I illegally took a pic of your balls (with your face in the shot) & posted it on the net for all to see… there is no “damage”?
Invasion of privacy IS “damage”.
@forgottenpassword: Lovely, now you’re talking about balls. Way to bring everyone’s IQ down a couple notches.
The story at the post-gazette was that the driveway had a clear “private” sign to it. I’ve seen other houses in Pittsburgh with those kind of markings. I haven’t looked at google to see if the sign is actually visible. But the argument was that they went past the private sign.
There are many “private” drives that have names. Sometimes there several diffent homes (with different house numbers) on the drive.
Is it private? Maybe.
It may also be public.
I know of one that was just turned over to the city (so the city is now responsible for upkeep).
It WAS a private drive, now it is a public street. If you didn’t live here would you know the difference?
Looks like the driver made an honest mistake. It was removed. Move on.
Simple solution: “Private property” sign where the road begins.
That’s all it takes.
@Nicholas_schaulsohn: They were not looking to get the pictures pulled. They were looking for some of that fat Google cheese. Americans and lawsuits are the biggest running joke ever.
What is the difference between me using StreetView to virtually “drive” down their drive way to their house, and me actually getting in my car and driving down their driveway to their house?
Answer: I can’t get out of my car, look into their windows, and possibly steal stuff from their house using StreetView!
This whole thing is a joke. There is no harm in having your “private” drive displayed publicly on the internet when it would be just as easy to actually drive down this driveway and stare at their house in person!
And I also have to say that I live on a “private” drive, albeit an unnamed one, but I wouldn’t care if the StreetView van drove down my private drive, up my driveway, and drove through my house!
If this was my house, I would think it was awesome. Now people can actually use StreetView to figure out where they are going…right up to the house.
@forgottenpassword: I’m with the other guys here – you’re definitely exaggerating the amount of “damage” here.
The information isn’t live, therefore useless to thieves trying to remotely case the house (e.g. how do they know a gate/cameras/whatever haven’t been installed since the photos were taken? They don’t.) There is absolutely no additional information than a person would see by driving down that driveway and turning around, which probably happens every week if not every day.
From the look of the photos, there was no warning before reaching the driveway that the road would disappear, and the driver simply drove to the closest safe place to turn around. If they want privacy, surely posting a sign warning people that it’s private property would be a good start?
Besides which, this is a great example of the Streisand effect in action. If they had just had the images removed, it’s unlikely that caches would have existed outside of Google for any length of time so problem solved with no damage. By suing, they have attracted international media attention and so these pictures will NEVER go away – there will always be a site that has a local copy of the above photos linked with their names. Pretty dumb of them, huh?
Btw, if you truly equate someone looking at your house with someone looking at your balls, you have other issues.
@aphexbr: yeah, The Streisand effect — that’s the name of the phenomenon I couldn’t think of earlier. This is why I am really inclined to agree that their main goal is to just get money. If they were truly worried about privacy, they would have gone through the appropriate channels that Google provides and not jumped to a law suit. By suing, they ensured that those images would be plastered everywhere. And I’m still entirely unconvinced that the images cause any real damage that other people would want to be aware of and look out for.
There’s nothing on there that a potential thief can’t already get through other easy means. I.e. public records, looking at a map and choosing an isolate road and driving down it, etc.
Okay, I thought this was a frivolous suit, but now that I see that Google was on their private property, in their driveway, I think Google is lucky the Borings are only suing for $25,000.00.
That whole “do no evil” thing is slipping away from Google.
@ogman: Nah, they still don’t do evil.
They just raise the stakes, making it more and more dangerous should they ever really do evil.
@Nicholas_schaulsohn: Nick, ever hear of a nifty legal concept called trespass.