Google fined $2000 for street view clevage shot

[scarystuffyo]

http://gizmodo.com/google-fined-2-000-for-street-view-cleavage-shot-1653199227



The lady claimed such high levels of embarrassment were caused by seeing the top-heavy photo of herself sitting outside her house in 2009 that it caused her emotional damage and triggered a bout of depression

[La Lioness Priyanka]

1. the lady had the right to not have that pic on the internet

not sure what the eye rolling is about

[djean111]

2. Didn't you know?

Evidently, any time you walk outside your front door (or back door, now that we have camera drones) you not only have no expectation of privacy at all, but you just may see yourself all over the internet.

Dunno about privacy inside your house. Probably have to stay away from windows. And even then, your privacy can be invaded by having everything you say on the phone or type on your computer recorded and searched through, if the NSA feels like it.

We are all just paparazzi fodder now. And we all have the capacity to be Big Brother. Some revel in that.

Bet that if someone smacked down a hobbyist's cute little drone over their back yard, some would yell foul. For depriving the poor hobbyist.

Can't do anything about it except avoid those who think it okay and funny, in my private life.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

7. Actually, it's pretty simple to have Google blank you off street view.

My housemate got ours hidden after she checked and found it showed her license plate on the car in the driveway when they took the pic.

[Nye Bevan]

12. What's the danger if someone sees your license plate number?

I regularly drive around in public with my license plate fully visible and have never had a problem.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

19. No idea, she just didn't like it. nt

[ozone82]

34. You Used To Be Able Get The Address

Of someone from the DMV. An young actress in Los Angeles who was being stalked was murdered when the killer was given her address by the DMV. This was in the 1980s I think. Some states may still allow this.

[Fawke Em]

48. Rebecca Schaeffer.

"After learning that Arthur Richard Jackson, a man that stalked and stabbed actress Theresa Saldana in 1982, had used a private investigator to obtain Saldana's address, Bardo approached a detective agency in Tucson and paid them $250 to find Schaeffer's home address in California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) records."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Schaeffer

I recently re-read about this after the sad death of Robin Williams. I had been searching for what Pam Dawber had been up since "My Sister Sam." Dawber and Schaeffer started in that show together.

[Codeine]

22. Why would you have an expectation of privacy

whilst in full public view? I expect privacy in my home and in private communications, but not while sitting outside in full view of the street. That isn't private.

[bobclark86]

35. Umm, you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy in public

That's why its called being in public, not in private. Otherwise, every CCTV camera owner would be sued out of existence, and every news and street photographer would be jailed.

[X_Digger]

36. Umm.. you have no right to not be photographed while in public.

Who the fuck do you think you are?

[GummyBearz]

3. If...

anyone in the background of a photograph taken in public space can sue the photographer, I am going to start photo bombing everyone I can... $2,000 every time is good money. yeehaw! Another free ride! And I'm sure the lawyers wont mind

[uppityperson]

4. I agree, she had the right to not have that pic on the internet

Regarding the eye rolling, consider the source.

[Nye Bevan]

13. So if you are in a baseball game or other public place in a revealing outfit

and you happen to appear in a photo that someone takes and posts on the internet (either a news photographer or a private individual) would you expect to have the right to be blurred out of that photo, and to be able to sue for thousands of dollars if you were not?

[La Lioness Priyanka]

14. there are times we are in public knowing that cameras will be around (sports events, music events)

there are other times when we are just sitting on a porch not expecting to show up on the internet forever. most people can tell the difference.

[woo me with science]

16. +1

[Nye Bevan]

17. Legally, sitting on your porch in full public view, you have no "expectation of privacy",

in the same way as if you are at a sporting event, at least in the US. I guess the law is different in Canada. I wonder how they draw the line; for example if you live on a busier street crowded with people, do you have less expectation of privacy sitting on your porch in public view than if it is a quieter street?

[Jamastiene]

44. Exactly.

I have also noticed that on TV when they put a person, who was in public, on the air, that person has to give their consent. But someone sitting in their own yard does not have that same option? A person sitting in their own yard has no right to privacy? Geez, you'd think someone in their own yard might have some right to privacy. Just because someone can see a person in their yard shouldn't give them a right to take pictures of them and publish the pictures WITH their address on the internet.

I can't believe what I read in this thread about "upskirt" pictures either. Women truly have so few rights to our own bodies at this point. It is sickening.

[Orrex]

26. Doesn't the use of the ticket waive certain claims of privacy?

I thought that was part of the purchase/use agreement. If you show up on the jumbotron while doing something embarrassing (a la George Costanza) you can't sue the park or the media for it, since you're explicitly putting yourself in plain and public sight by being there.

Very different from this woman being photographed while on her own private property.


Of course, a $2000 fine is invisible to Google. It might mean that they can only stock their employees' olive bar at 99% capacity instead of 100% for a few days.

[Drunken Irishman]

20. There's a photo I took where the neighbor is in the background watering their lawn...

Do I have to get their permission to upload that to the internet?

[Logical]

30. You of course are totally incorrect about this. nt

[mercuryblues]

5. here in

the states, judges are ruling that upskirt photos of women are legal. If a woman wears a dress n public, she should expect no right of privacy to what is under that dress being photographed.

I like Canada's way better.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

8. I think those rulings were a pretty narrow decision.

As I recall, the women in question were sitting on upper level steps with their legs spread apart so that anyone standing in front of them looking in that direction or taking a picture of the monument got the dubious pleasure of seeing what was 'under their dress' without any special actions taken. I would have wondered why they (the women involved) didn't get fined for 'public indecency' for putting their genitalia on display.

You get some perv sticking a camera under somebody's dress, and yes, they'll get their own charges pressed against them.

[Nye Bevan]

15. Yes, that was women sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial,

and the photos were taken completely in the open (no surreptitious hidden lenses etc.)

[mercuryblues]

21. Apparently

There has to be a law specifically making this illegal. There is no law on the books that say putting a camera between a woman's legs and taking a picture is illegal? Nothing else they could have been charged with?

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/05/us/massachusetts-upskirt-photography/

Massachusetts' highest court ruled Wednesday that it is not illegal to secretly photograph underneath a person's clothing -- a practice known as "upskirting" -- prompting one prosecutor to call for a revision of state law.

The high court ruled that the practice did not violate the law because the women who were photographed while riding Boston public transportation were not nude or partially nude.

http://www.salon.com/2008/11/25/upskirting/

On a warm summer day two years ago, a 16-year-old girl put on a skirt and headed to the SuperTarget in her hometown of Tulsa, Okla. As she shopped the air-conditioned aisles, a man
knelt behind her, carefully slid a camera in between her bare legs and snapped a photo of her underwear. Police arrested the 34-year-old man, but the charges were ultimately dropped on the grounds that the girl did not, as required by the state’s Peeping Tom law, have “a right to a reasonable expectation of privacy,” given the public location. In non-legalese: Wear a skirt in public, and you might just get a camera in the crotch.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/10/upskirt-photos-legal-dc_n_5966406.html

In the DC case, the photos were not unfortunate captures. The police noticed he was positioning himself to get these photos. Based on what he said, they obtained a search warrant and found more some of them were of the angle that he did indeed put his camera between a woman's legs for the upskirt photo

But wait, no matter how the law is written, state supreme courts rule it unconstitutional.

http://www.ibtimes.com/texas-upskirt-law-ruled-unconstitutional-anti-creepshot-privacy-statutes-face-legal-1691321

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday struck down a part of the state penal code that banned people from taking photos or videos up women’s skirts in public. The state’s highest criminal court, in an 8-1 decision, said the statute violated the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech by criminalizing photos taken for sexual gratification.

IOW, I like Canada's way better.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

23. Well those are icky.

I stand corrected then, apparently it isn't illegal to shove a camera under someone's dress. Ewww.

[mercuryblues]

24. exactly

Women in public have no right to privacy, under their clothing. States have responding to this by including upskirt type photos as being illegal and some state courts are calling those laws unconstitutional.

If a woman does not wear dresses, she is not considered feminine by some, if she wears dresses in public, by law she has no rights to privacy.


I would hazard a guess that GSV did not blur her out because they were getting hits for her address. Which she asked them to blur out and they didn't. They did blur out her face, but left her breasts, car and address visible.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

27. We didn't have to specify the part to blur.

As far as I can tell, you simply can't google street view our address now at all. (or in fact the house on either side of us, which they might need to do to make sure you can't see ours at an angle.)

[Jamastiene]

46. I'd like to know how to get them to make my not searchable too.

Do you have to get a lawyer to send them a letter or what?

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

53. I think we did it entirely online, for free.

Simply typing 'remove my address from google street view' into a google search bar seems to give a bunch of pages that explain how to.

[MADem]

52. Massachusetts fixed that issue last March. FWIW.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/07/justice/massachusetts-upskirt-bill/


(CNN) -- Modern-day peeping Toms in Massachusetts, the sorts who get their thrills snapping "upskirt" photos on crowded subways, now have their behavior criminalized.
Gov. Deval Patrick signed a bill Friday, according to his office, making photographing or recording video under a person's clothing -- think down a blouse or up a skirt -- a misdemeanor.
"The legislation makes the secret photographing, videotaping, or electronically surveiling of another person's sexual or other intimate parts, whether under or around a person's clothing or when a reasonable person would believe that the person's intimate parts would not be visible to the public, a crime," Patrick's office said in a prepared statement.
The crime is punishable by up 2½ years in jail or a fine of up to $5,000.

[davidn3600]

33. That law was struck down by the courts because it was too broad

If you are talking about that Texas ruling, the way the law was written was that practically any picture at all of a woman in a public venue could be illegal. The court said the language of the law is too vague and therefore tossed it out.

Don't blame the courts for bad laws passed by incompetent legislators.

[X_Digger]

37. Not quite. One law was struck down as being too broad in scope.

The judges pointed to a more narrow statute in the same law dealing with bathroom shots that was actually narrowly tailored, and was therefore constitutional.

[Jamastiene]

57. I like Canada's way better too.

Here in the US, women are put in a situation where we cannot possibly ever expect any privacy or rights, not in this lifetime, at least. It's deranged that upskirt photos are legal. I wonder if those judges really thought that through. When I was a kid, I went to a Christian school that only allowed girls to wear dresses. What if someone takes an upskirt of a kid who is at the grocery store after school? Did the judges think about that? Something tells me they did not. We all know there are sickos out there who would do something like that too. I'm glad I did not have children now that I see the Age of Big Brother coming to fruition. They would not have a childhood at all before they had to face the horrors out there. The minute they got old enough to get near a computer, they would have to learn to protect themselves from those horrors. I feel really bad for kids trying to grow up in today's world.

[Jamastiene]

6. I was going to Recommend this thread, but not with the

eye rolling smiley. When will people figure out that women are not public property?

[Logical]

31. Well, anyone one is public property when appearing in the public. nt

[Jamastiene]

38. To do with as any man pleases?

Nope, only women have to put up with that.

[Logical]

42. How do you propose to ban it? Nt

[Jamastiene]

43. It should be illegal to take pictures of someone else's private property or them

without their consent. Just because a woman sits down on her porch doesn't mean she's performing for the world to see. What if some sicko finds her picture on Google Street View then starts stalking her? Or worse, kills her when she doesn't want their attention? How far do you think we should let invasion of privacy go? And yes, a person should be considered "in private" in their own yard, ffs. There needs to be a line between what is considered public and what is considered private. A person should be safe in their own yard and their own house.

[Nye Bevan]

45. Did you get permission to post a picture of a seven-year old girl on the internet?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=231x19205

What if some sicko finds this picture of her that you posted in the DU archives and then starts stalking her?

[Jamastiene]

47. That picture was already in the public domain, already published in a paper.

And, it was put there by her own family, which means they wanted it public. And her address isn't listed either. So, no, no one is going to stalk her, because they won't be able to find her. Big difference. You don't seem to get it.

[Logical]

51. Bullshit.......

I can take a picture of my son in our front yard and pick up 5 front yards in my neighborhood. I should be arrested for that if someone is in their front yard with a swimsuit on? Have you really thought this out much?

I can have a security camera in my front yard and see 8 other front yards.

How about this, don't wear any clothes outside in plain view of other that you don't want people to see?

We are not talking about someone taking pictures over a fence here. She was sitting on her front porch.

I do not want to live in your country.

[Jamastiene]

56. And I don't want to live in your country.

On that, we agree.

[Logical]

59. LOL, you have not put 10 minutes of thought to enforcing what you proposed. Impossible. nt

[mercuryblues]

54. Wonder

Why this part did not make it into the blog that is linked to in the OP.

http://www.newser.com/story/198024/google-fined-for-showing-cleavage-on-street-view.html

The Canadian woman looked up her house on Street View in 2009 and found the picture, in which she's sitting on her front stoop, leaning forward and displaying her cleavage. Her face was blurred, but not enough to make her unrecognizable. She says she complained to Google soon after and got no response, then sent Google a letter arguing that she was "at the mercy of potential predators" thanks to the picture; the company says it never got the letter, Ars Technica reports.

And so in 2011 Grillo filed a complaint against Google, demanding it blur the rest of her body and her license plate (shown in the photo), as well as pay her $45,000 Canadian for emotional damage she said she suffered as a result of the photo (including mockery from colleagues at the bank she worked at; she ultimately quit her job). Google agreed to alter the photo but not to pay.

Oh I know, it is not as easy to mock her, if it was.

[Jamastiene]

58. Women don't stand a chance. n/t

[Brigid]

9. Just wait until . . .

The lawsuits start coming in ftom those stupid glass thingies.

[Nye Bevan]

10. Kind of ironic that when I click the link you provided I get to see this woman's cleavage.

Had this woman not sued, I would never have heard of her and would never have seen her cleavage. Streisand effect, anyone?

[alphafemale]

40. Kind of like a Hidden Post on DU.

You know you gotta see it.

[VScott]

11. Bad decision by the judge

Should have ruled in favor of Google, plus awarded them court costs and expenses from the
plaintiff.

[customerserviceguy]

29. This is Canada

Bad manners are criminalized there.

If this had been a Peeping Tom type of photo through her bedroom window, I could see her point, but if you sit on your front porch, and have someone take a picture of you at eye level (this is clearly no upskirt thing) then I would think you'd have less of a case.

At any rate, had she not raised a fuss, I wouldn't have seen her picture in the link at the OP. Hope she enjoys the money.

[Silent3]

18. I can see making Google take down such pictures upon request...

...but fining them for just showing a slice of real like that any passerby would have seen (even if not in such large numbers as on the internet) is ridiculous.

[chrisa]

25. Streisand Effect

I wonder how many people actually saw this before? You could probably count it on one hand.

[Lancero]

28. I have to wonder - Did she give Gizmodo permission to show off her pic?

[Logical]

32. No need to I am sure. nt

[djean111]

39. I am starting to think that a burqa might not be such a bad fucking idea after all.

Not ever going to change the way some men think, IMO.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

50. A burqa is fine ...

... as long as the woman (or man) chooses to wear it.

It's the enforcement, by stoning or beheading, that's quite objectionable.

[alphafemale]

41. $2000? Google probably made that in 1/10th of a second.

But.....

Careful, she's going to sue you for posting this.

Probably takes you a bit longer to make that kind of money.

[joeybee12]

49. Down the blouse = bad, but up the skirt = good?

Was it Massachusetts where that guy won the case when he was taking photos UP women's skirts???

[Orrex]

55. Up-skirt pics are the height of vile behavior, but...

The difference IMO is that those pics are basically anonymous, whereas this one captures a shot of the woman (likely) easily identifiable to people in her neighborhood and anyone else who knows where she lives.

Up-skirt pictures should be outlawed, full stop. But the particular violation of privacy in this case is somewhat different.

[hughee99]

60. Holy shit! Is that Poppy Bush outside a Dallas police station in 1963?

Looks just like him.