Google's map technology once again criticized for the amount of details it shows

Apr 7, 2008 06:53 GMT  ·  By

Aaron and Christine Boring, a Pennsylvanian couple, have sued the Mountain View-based company Google, claiming that the search firm published photos of their private property without authorization. The couple accuses Google that its Street View technology, a special Google Maps function which provides street level panoramas, violated their privacy after it published photos with their house and the front driveway, Associated Press informed today.

According to the same source, the Borings explained that their driveway is labeled as "Private Property" which obviously prohibits Google from taking photos in the area, every such activity being considered privacy and property violation. However, Google defends itself saying that the company has always been opened to talks and any of the persons or the properties belonging to them that appear on Street View are free to request the removal of the photos as long as they can prove the ownership.

"We absolutely respect that people may not be comfortable with some of the imagery on the site. We actually make it pretty easy for people to submit a request to us to remove the imagery," the Mountain View company's spokesman, Larry Yu, said according to AP. "Isn't litigation the only way to change a big business' conduct with the public? What happened to their accountability?" Dennis Moskal, the Borings' lawyer, replied.

This is not the first time when the Mountain View company goes in trouble due to photos appearing on Street View. Sure, Google provides a method that would allow people to remove photos from Google Maps, but it has been proved that the process is sometimes extremely difficult and can last more than expected.

For those of you who don't know, the photos appearing on Street View are captured by multiple Google cars equipped with several high-end cameras, the cars being driven on most major avenues and roads in a certain city.