A Japanese woman is suing Internet giant Google for
displaying a photograph of her intimate apparel hanging on a
clothesline on its Street View
mapping service, claiming the images caused her psychological
distress, according to the Telegraph.
The unnamed woman is seeking damages of 600,000 Yen
(S$9,300) claiming her distress resulted in her being fired from
her job at a local hospital. She also had to change her
residence.
“I was overwhelmed with anxiety that I might be the target of a
sex crime,” the woman said during district court proceedings
held in the southern city of Fukuoka last week, reported Japan’s
Mainichi newspaper. “It caused me to lose my job and I had to
change my residence.”
The woman stumbled across the photo earlier this year when she
looked up her own address using Street View. The suit claims her
existing obsessive-compulsive disorder was exacerbated by the
anxiety brought on by the photo, as she feared that her daily
activities were being secretly recorded.
“I could understand if it was just a picture of the outside of
the apartment, but showing a person’s underwear hanging outside is
absolutely wrong,” the woman said in court.
Google immediately pulled out the photographs from Street View
when the woman filed the suit in October.
Meanwhile in Singapore, Google’s Street View photographs taken
outside the British High Commission along 297 Tanglin Road —
despite the “Photography is Prohibited” sign — have raised
eyebrows.
“Is Google breaking the law?” some netizens asked.
Source
http://sg.yfittopostblog.com/2010/12/23/google-sued-for-showing-photograph-of-womans-undergarments/
So your views on this? How does the undergarments be identified
as belonging to the person? Or was it getting fired and no money or
for other reasons use it as distress to sue? Who uploaded the
photos and does google as hosting site be responsible for the
content uploaded? Discuss.
