Court dismisses claim Google Street View invades folks' privacy

A privacy invasion case against Google that was given extra attention after the company asserted in court that getting your picture taken is just part of life in the 21st century, was dismissed yesterday by a judge who apparently agrees.

Last April, the Borings of Allegheny, Pennsylvania argued that their private space was interfered with by the roving camera of Google's Street View. In filing their lawsuit against the search giant, they may have brought more attention to themselves than Google's cameras might have merited. But the fact that few others among the millions who have had their front porches snapshot by Google's panoramic camera, convinced a district court judge in Pennsylvania yesterday to toss the Borings' case.

While there were clearly procedural reasons for granting Google's motion to dismiss, Judge Amy Reynolds Hay didn't waste the opportunity to inject a little dig against the Borings.

The procedural problem was that the Borings failed, under federal law, to demonstrate the specific damage they themselves claimed. Just saying their privacy was violated based on a photograph taken from the outside, isn't enough -- the front of one's house is visible to the general public as it is. And saying that distributing a picture of that house could conceivably be offensive to its occupants, presumes that something offensive was going on at the time the picture was taken.

"The Amended Complaint is devoid of facts sufficient to indicate that the photographs of the Borings' property revealed private facts such that a reasonable person would be highly offended," remarked Judge Reynolds. "The Plaintiffs do not allege that their situation is unique or even unusual."

And here is where the judge gets her dig: "Yet it does not appear that the viability of Street Search [sic] has been compromised by requests that images be removed, nor does a search of relevant legal terms show that courts are inundated with -- or even frequently consider -- privacy claims based on virtual mapping. Furthermore, as was true with the [Borings'] intrusion upon seclusion claim, the Plaintiffs have done little to limit -- and seem to have heightened intentionally -- public interest in and access to the allegedly private information."

Some of the publicity Judge Reynolds referred to focused on sources other than the Borings. Last July, the National Legal and Policy Center took up the Borings' cause by releasing a document (PDF available here) showing the amount of information publicly available about Google executives' own private abodes, just by looking up Street View.

But it may have been Google that blew the bullhorn first, beginning in May when Google technologist Vint Cerf (as cited by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer) made remarks to attendees who brought up the Boring case. Cerf's remarks included this gem: "Nothing you do ever goes away and nothing you do ever escapes notice...There isn't any privacy, get over it."

Then it was Google's Motion to Dismiss which stole the spotlight, thanks in large measure to its having been publicized by The Smoking Gun. The preliminary court statement appearing there cites the Motion as having stated on Google's behalf, "Complete privacy does not exist in this world except in a desert, and anyone who is not a hermit must expect and endure the ordinary incidents of the community life of which he [or she] is a part."

Actually, Judge Reynolds argued, the Borings actually could have opted out -- so many sources of Google's rapidly expanding databases have the option of opting out. But not only did they fail to do so, they allowed their names to be Googled to the extent that pictures of their house appeared in a multitude of places other than Street View.

That opinion from the Judge prompted technology legal blogger Eric Goldman to write late yesterday afternoon, "I was a little troubled by the latter point, which seemed circular to me -- plaintiffs bringing intrusion into seclusion lawsuits unavoidably thrust themselves into the public eye, whether they want to do so or not. This is especially true for anyone suing Google."