Pittsburgh couple suing Google over diminished home values

Posted April 5, 2008 at 02:43 PM by Natesh Sood

Section: Web, Websites, Google

This certainly is an unusual court case, and I doubt there will be enough evidence for this Pittsburgh couple to win their case. Basically, their main argument is Google had put their house into Google’s Street View service.

Aaron and Christine Boring, who are the residents of this house have filed a lawsuit in Allegheny County’s Court of Common pleas. In this lawsuit they accused Google of “intentional and/or grossly reckless invasion.” At this point, I still don’t think Google did anything wrong, but here is where the case gets interesting. According to the residents heir street is “clearly marked with a ‘Private Road’ sign.” The Borings went so far as to say that being included in the Street View caused them “mental suffering” and it also, somehow, diminished the value of their home. In the lawsuit, they are seeking about $25,000 in damages and want to get a court order, which would make Google get rid of the images of their house they had taken.

I think Google shouldn’t have included the houses on this street especially if it was marked with a Private Road sign, or if they really wanted to, they should have checked with the residents. I also wonder how this is different from Google Maps and the satellite view, while the image is obviously not as clear, it can still be pictured, I can see suing Google to have the images removed, but $25,000 sounds crazy.

Images [Google Pictures] Via [TechCrunch]