Peter A Clarke

In Google Loses Lawsuit For Posting Woman’s Cleavage the issue a Canadian Court dealt with was the liability of Google for taking a photograph of a woman sitting on her stoop.  The photograph showed the woman’s cleavage.  The fine is quite modest.

It provides:

A woman who in full public view wore cloths that revealed her cleavage, and whose photo was taken by Google Street view, has won approximately $2,000 from a Canadian court for the emotional damage she suffered by having her picture taken and posted on the internet.

While sitting on the stoop of her split level house in public view, the unidenitified woman’s picture was taken in 2009 when Google’s Street View cameras came rolling down, snapping 360 degree pictures for all to see.

Canadian court fined Google for privacy invasion

Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) was handed the fine from the Canadian court, after it was found to have embarrassed a lady and invaded her privacy by sticking a photo of her cleavage she was displaying in public.

However, the woman did not get the full satisfaction she sought from the court.

In her legal case, the woman claimed significantly high levels of embarrassment, particularly as her friends and neighbors, who presumably have seen her walking around the neighborhood in similar garb, might have seen the photos.  The top-heavy photo of herself sitting outside, looking like she is about to take a smoke outside her home in 2009, was too much for the woman to handle.  In fact, so much so that it caused her emotional damage and triggered a bout of depression.

Court ordered a compensation of $2,250 Canadian dollars

It is unknown how many people recognized the woman and mentioned something to her. But nonetheless, the judge disagreed with the extent of her suffering and handed her a relatively small amount of compensation of $2,250 Canadian dollars, which is close to $2,000 US dollars — all for the shaming the public display of the photo triggered.

Later comments to the original English article note that in the French version of the story, the Canadian law in question against the “publication of embarrassing and indecent” pictures of people is really intended to protect kids and students, but allows judges discretion in applying it in cases like this. The fine is much lower than a more egregious violation would have warranted. Google did violate the letter of the law, but at its lowest threshold, hence the very low fine, was one observation.