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Google has been taking photos of streets as a part of their Google Maps project. (I know this is OLD news... this is just for those who aren't aware of it yet) What Google Maps does is drivve a car around and take snap shots which they then stitch together so that instead of viewing a street from above you can view the street from a horizontal viewpoint.

The video above may be funny but it does raise an important case in point about people's right to privacy. Here is a case from USA where the couple is suing Google Maps because of the reasons stated below:

A western Pennsylvania couple has sued Google, saying pictures of their home that appear on the website's "Street View" feature violated their privacy, devalued their property and caused them mental suffering.

Aaron and Christine Boring bought the home in Franklin Park, a Pittsburgh suburb, in October 2006 for a "considerable sum of money", according to their 10-page lawsuit filed on Wednesday in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court.

"A major component of their purchase decision was a desire for privacy," the lawsuit said.

The suit targets the Mountain View, California, company over images on its website, which allows users to find street-level photos by clicking on a map. To gather the photos, Google uses vehicles with mounted digital cameras to take pictures up and down the streets of major metropolitan areas.

The Borings say the images of their home on the Google site had to be taken from their long driveway, labeled Private Road, and that violated their privacy.

"There's no merit to this action," Google spokesman Larry Yu said. "It is unfortunate litigation was chosen to address the concern because we have visible tools, such as a YouTube video, to help people learn about imagery removal and an easy-to-use process to facilitate image removal."

He said Google has links on the website that let property owners request that such images be removed if they cite a good reason and can confirm they own the property depicted.

"We absolutely respect that people may not be comfortable with some of the imagery on the site," Yu said. "We actually make it pretty easy for people to submit a request to us to remove the imagery."

Yu also said if the Borings made such a request to Google, especially arguing the images show a view from their private driveway, he is confident that the image would be removed.

The couple's attorney, Dennis Moskal, said that was not the point. He said the Borings' privacy was invaded when the Google vehicle allegedly drove onto their property. Removing the image did not undo that damage - nor would it deter the company from doing the same thing in the future, he said.

"Isn't litigation the only way to change a big business' conduct with the public?" Moskal said. "What happened to their accountability?"

Google, however, is not the only website with a photo of the Borings' property.

The Allegheny County real estate website has a photo, plus a detailed description of the home and the couple's name. The site contains similar information, including pictures, of nearly every property in the county.

Moskal said the county's image appeared to be less intrusive than Google's, but said there's no way to take a picture of the home from a public street.

Moskal said his clients did not wish to speak to the media. AP could not find a listed phone number for them.

This article "A Scary Case Study: Google Maps" is a part of my Internet Wild West Frontier of Today information dump.

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