Saturday, November 1, 2014

Google Fined $2000 for Cleavage in Street View
Apparently this has been going on a lot lately. Google's Street View has again been put to task for showing something that somebody was embarrassed about. This time they sued. And won.

The latest embarrassment for Google's Street View comes from Canada and a lady who was just sitting there on her front steps minding her own business and just happened to be leaning over checking her cell phone when Google's camera car came driving by. Click, click, and there she was, for all the world to see, unintentionally showing some rather ample cleavage to the rest of the world. 

Maria Pia Grillo found her image on Google and naturally was a wee bit embarrassed. But she got rather mad when several million others also found the image. Even though her face was blurred in the image, the cleavage wasn't. She says she sent messages to Google but got no response, then she sent Google a registered letter arguing that she felt that she was "at the mercy of potential predators" because of the picture.

And so, back in 2011, Ms. Grillo filed a judicial complaint against Google, and demanded it blur the rest of her body along with the license plate of her car which was also shown in the photo. She asked for $45,000 Canadian because she said she had suffered emotional damage along with mockery from her colleagues at her work. 

Now, a Montreal judge has agreed, at least with part of her argument, and ordered Google to pay her $2,250 plus interest, along with $159 in court costs.

Google can afford it. They made something like $60 billion last year.