The "Google Street View" Lawsuit

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

________________________________________
From: Lauren Weinstein [lauren () vortex com]
Sent: Monday, April 14, 2008 12:09 AM
To: David Farber
Subject: The "Google Street View" Lawsuit

                         The "Google Street View" Lawsuit

                   http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000380.html


Greetings.  Since the airing of an "NBC Nightly News" segment a few
days ago, in which I appeared as a brief sound bite,
( [video]: http://lauren.vortex.com/nbc-nn-google-sv ),
I've received quite a few queries as to why I've publicly taken
Google's side in the associated matter of a lawsuit filed
against Google regarding their Street View service
( http://www.wibw.com/nationalnews/headlines/17352199.html ).

Regular readers know that I've been generally quite supportive of
Google Street View, and the associated right to take photos from
public property.  The presence of a formal mechanism to request
removal of privacy-sensitive photos from Street View -- which I
believe has been present since the service was launched -- is a
important factor as well.

In the case under discussion, it seems clear that the straying onto
private property (all it took was not noticing one sign) does not
appear to come anywhere near the "gross" and "intentional" violation
that the lawsuit alleges, and does not represent Google policy.

At the worst, this seems to be a case of "unintentional technical
trespass" (something we've all likely done accidentally at one time
or another).  "Harmless error" is another way to phrase it -- but
either way, the elevation of this event into litigation seems
utterly inappropriate.

I have another concern as well.  We're increasingly seeing
overzealous legislative and administrative attempts to limit or
prohibit a significant variety of innocent public photography.  In
my view, such restrictions can carry seriously negative public
interest and safety risks -- by creating an environment where honest
citizens could be unable to (legally) photographically document key
locations and events -- images that are very frequently squarely in
the best interests of the public at large.

While the probability of this particular lawsuit triggering mass
photography prohibitions is quite low, it's still another link in
the chain of arguments that photography restriction proponents are
likely to keep pressing forward.

It's important to try keep all privacy-related matters in context,
since careless or knee-jerk reactions can result in a wide variety
of possibly unintended consequences, and we've seen bad laws result
inappropriately from seemingly minor events in the past.

Overall, both Google Street View and public photography in general
are conducive to public interests, while broad photographic
prohibitions carry the potential to do serious damage to those very
same interests.

--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren () vortex com or lauren () pfir org
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
   - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, NNSquad
   - Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com

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