The Lockwood Letter

Today I’m starting a new feature here called That’s Ridiculous, where I’ll be writing about crazy and just plain dumb stuff that happens.

In what looks to me like someone just going after a big company since it has deep pockets, a Pittsburgh couple is suing Google for invasion of privacy over Google Maps.

In some cities, Google sends out vehicles to photograph the streets, and these photos are put together and tied to the maps to give you a street-level view of the area… what you would see if you drove there yourself.

I don’t see how publishing photos of what anyone can see from the street is an invasion of privacy. If it were photos of the inside or the people, maybe, but not this. I also don’t see how these photos being published harms the value of the property, as the lawsuit claims. But then it also claims “mental suffering,” clearly going for whatever some lawyer could think of to put in his garbage lawsuit.

Of course, the irony here is that this couple who are supposedly so concerned about their privacy are now in the public eye thanks to their crazy lawsuit, which has their names (Aaron and Christine Boring) and address (1567 Oakridge Lane) on it, which is now public information.

If not for this lawsuit, the only people who would have ever seen the photos are the few who happened to look at the Google Maps for that very specific part of that neighborhood, plus the Google person who took the photos.

There are plenty of areas where people can legitimately be concerned about Google invading their privacy, but this isn’t one of them. It’s clear to me these people just want easy money and publicity. That’s ridiculous!