Japanese woman sues Google over panty pics on StreetView

I actually think that the woman is right in defending her right to a privacy, no matter how outrageous it may look.

This happened in the district of Fukuoka as a woman, who preferred to remain anonymous, claimed her obsessive-compulsive disorder worsened and she feared everything she did throughout the day was secretly recorded after Google Street View captured images of her underwear hanging out to dry. She sued the search giant for $7,000 and won the case.

"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 unnamed woman told the district court of Fukuoka, Japan, where she filed her case in October. Google reportedly removed the image around the same time.

Google Street View, another internet menace to privacy?

Google Street View provides 360-degree street-level images of locations in more than a dozen countries, recorded by cars equipped with 9-lens panoramic cameras. The woman filing the suit reportedly looked up her address online last spring and saw her intimate apparel hanging out for the whole wired world to see.

"I was overwhelmed with anxiety that I might be the target of a sex crime," she said. "It caused me to lose my job and I had to change my residence."

It's unclear whether the plaintiff knew her underthings were viewable from the street (thus captured by the Street View car) before she Googled her address. Stories of odd Street View lookups are becoming increasingly common as Street View extends its search —though most are not traumatic.

Well, I know of someone who would support Google StreetView for his 'investigation and data gathering' purposes:

Teh Pervy sage!!!!!!

sources: the UK Telegraph, MSNBC