Google sued successfully for trespassing

Street view woes

[wheel]

Google has acknowledged that it trespassed when it took a photo of a Pittsburgh-area house for its Street View service, but will pay only $1 in damages to a couple who sued.

[usatoday.com...]


This is the part I find offensive:

Google said people can have such photos removed upon request and argued that the images of the Boring home were no more invasive than those found on a county real estate tax website.

Why are they arguing? Why are they trying to justify their actions? They knew they trespassed. How about a sorry, instead of putting a couple through a lawsuit?

[engine]

I'm surprised by the settlement. If it were you or I, would we get away with trespassing for $1. Worse if we went and took a photo and put it online for the world to see.

[londrum]

the article says both sides had to pay their own legal fees, which seems to have gone on for 2 years.

i'm guessing 1 dollar didn't cover it, so the couple must have been considerably out of pocket.

[engine]

Only the lawyers win! ;)

[Maurice]

the $1 fine is a judges way of saying that this was a frivolous suit and than rather than immediately suing they should have tried to reach a resolution in a less confrontational way first.

and for some types of court cases/legal proceedings if you don't follow procedures or make a good faith attempt to, you automatically lose industrial tribunals is one that comes to mind.