Minnesota Town Tells Google Street View to Hit the Road
North Oaks, Minnesota, a small suburb of St. Paul, has kindly asked Google to remove their Street View images of the town of 4,500. North Oaks is a private community, so Google’s images had to have been taken by somebody who was trespassing. Google kindly obliged. End of story?
The North Oaks City Council sent a letter to Google asking them to remove the images or be sited for trespassing. The streets in North Oaks are privately owned and maintained by the residents of the small town, so they have every right to determine who can and can not take to their streets. Apparently, Google is somebody they don’t/didn’t want in their realm.
“It’s not the hoity-toity folks trying to figure out how to keep the world away,” said Mayor Thomas Watson. “They really didn’t have any authorization to go on private property.” It appears as thought a lot of people in the Twin Cities look at the North Oaks folks as a little bit elitist.
This isn’t the first controversy for Google Street View this year. A Pittsburgh couple with a driveway marked “private drive” sued Google for $25,000 and want Google to destroy images taken of their home. They argue that the pictures diminish their property value and that it caused “mental suffering.”
It is apparent that the Google car (man, I’d enjoy that job) did roll up their driveway, and it is a private road. While it is arguable about whether or not this is a frivolous lawsuit, Google shouldn’t have driven up that road and should have posted the pictures.
Google has also caught people urinating in public. Watch what you’re doing out there, because you never know when the eye of Google may be ogling your junk and posting it for the world to see.
Thanks to Lora Pabst of The StarTribune for the quotes & story, and Duncan Riley of Techcrunch.
Technorati Tags: google, google street view, north oaks
