Google Street View, long established as a source for photos of unaware naked people, is being sued by a man in France because one of its camera-mounted cars snapped a photo of him pissing into a courtyard on his property and, as any of us surely would, uploaded it to the internet.
Although Google blurred his face, the man claims he became the “laughing stock” of his small town and brought the suit for infringement of privacy to a court in Angiers. He wants his photo taken off and 10,000 euros (around $13,000). A Google lawyer has dismissed the suit as “implausible.”
It sounds like a crazy lawsuit, but even if this Frenchman wins I don’t think Google will be pissing itself over the loss. I just hope that this doesn’t set a dangerous anti-ridiculous-Street-View-image precedent, though. I can’t imagine a world deprived of super hero pub crawls, avenging scuba divers, or the occasional chunky truck party. [AFP, TDG]
