Man Awarded $12,500 After Google Street View Photographed His Ass

0
9K

What does involuntary public embarrassment get you? Somewhere in the vicinity of $12,500. An Argentinian man who had his whole bare ass captured by a Google Street View camera and published to Google Maps was awarded that modest sum by an Argentine court for having his privacy violated and his dignity damaged.

The man, a police officer, was naked in his yard in 2017 when a Google Street View car came driving by. Even though he was behind a six-and-a-half-foot-tall fence, the camera caught him, quite literally, with his pants down. Google typically blurs faces when they appear on camera, but butts apparently can make it through the censors, and the man had his ass plastered on the internet, and it was easily identifiable along with his street name and home address.

According to CBS News, the man claimed that he was humiliated by the situation, subjected to ridicule from his coworkers and neighbors, all because Google’s cameras could peep over his wall that kept his nudity private from prying eyes at normal human heights. Google, per the report, argued that his wall was not high enough, which is technically true in the sense that it literally did not prevent him from being photographed—though one could reasonably assume the wall was not installed with car-mounted, 360-degree cameras in mind.

The man’s first attempt to get compensation was rejected by a court, which said he had no claim to damages and no one to blame but himself for “walking around in inappropriate conditions in the garden of his home.” Which, you know, that’s not an entirely wrong conclusion.

But an appeals court saw it his way, recognizing that his privacy was violated by the photo. “This involves an image of a person that was not captured in a public space but within the confines of their home, behind a fence taller than the average-sized person,” the court said, calling the invasion of privacy “blatant” and the whole situation an “arbitrary intrusion into another’s life.”

The court pointed out that Google has a practice of blurring faces and license plates on phones taken by its Street View cameras, so it clearly understands the potential harm that could occur if it published a photo of someone without permission. So it does seem a little weird to not blur the fully naked guy. “No one wants to appear exposed to the world as the day they were born,” the judges wrote.

For his troubles, the man was awarded the $12.5k in damages from Google—which is significantly more than the $1 it paid to a Pittsburgh-area couple who accused the company of trespassing by taking photos of their private road, but less than the $13 million settlement it paid in a class-action case accusing it of collecting personal information as part of its Street View project.

Like
Love
Haha
3
Site içinde arama yapın
Kategoriler
Read More
News
Quy định quan trọng liên quan đến hàng triệu xe máy chạy xăng ở Hà Nội, người dân cần nắm rõ
Sở Xây dựng Hà Nội vừa công bố Dự thảo Nghị quyết để...
By ManagerNeat 2025-07-25 03:50:04 0 7K
News
Thứ gây hại nhất trong mì ăn liền không phải là gói gia vị? Một tuần nên ăn bao nhiêu lần? Chuyên gia y tế tiết lộ cách ăn mì ăn liền an toàn
Gói gia vị đỏ cam có thể chứa chất gây ung thư Bác sĩ...
By PuppetYoshi 2025-07-03 06:59:04 0 10K
News
Loại 'gỗ hoàng đế' giá lên đến 9.000 tỷ đồng nhưng không ai dám đốn hạ, lấy cắp: Vì sao?
Trên thế giới, không ít loại gỗ quý hiếm và đắt đỏ...
By LegitimateDealer354 2025-06-20 08:50:04 0 11K
Science
Innovative Propulsion Technology May Reach Enigmatic Planet Beyond Pluto Within a Decade
On November 14, 2003, astronomers spotted what was...
By StrawberryOk3387 2025-07-01 20:30:03 0 9K
News
Từ cuối tháng 8, sẽ có 3 hãng hàng không khai thác tại Nhà ga T3 sân bay Tân Sơn Nhất, hành khách chú ý khi bay
Cụ thể, Vietravel Airlines sẽ chuyển toàn bộ hoạt động...
By Excal333 2025-08-13 07:18:06 0 9K