Who's their lawyer, James Stewart?

If you go on someone else's property, that's not trespassing, even if it's posted. If you are then told to leave and refuse, that's trespassing. Crossing a fenceline or climbing a gate (if they are posted) are also trespassing. But this case does not involve any kind of barrier, and there was no order to leave. If these people can't be bothered to keep Girl Scout cookie sellers off their property, they have no case.

"If these people can't be bothered to keep Girl Scout cookie sellers off their property, they have no case."

now that is an interesting stance on the cam-car wielding oompa loompas, please carry on

So there's a dispute about whether there was a private road sign. surely the easiest way to settle that is to look on the Google streetview images!

As much as I would agree with you.. that's just too sensible!!

It is the Boring's after all!

How many millenia (pleural), does the case suggest, that there have *actually* *been* Americans around, to defy callous and barbaric invaders?

Or are they including the Native Americans in this one?

"the Google (note comercial entity) car is technically a commercial vehicle "

theres a big difference between "is technically" and "is"

That doesn't sound right. In the UK, if you're on private property whether unknowingly or otherwise, you are committing trespass; if you are then told to leave and don't, you are committing aggravated trespass. I seem to remember the USA being similar.

Is it a private driveway or a private road? I've seen references to both terms in various articles.

If it's a private driveway, it is their property and if they're the sort to complain about people turning round in their driveway then they have a point.

A private road though is not their personal property, it's just a road collectively owned and maintained by the houses on it rather than the council, and while they might object, other houses on that road may have wanted to be included.

I can't really imagine a Google car driving up someone's driveway to their house, so I always assumed it was a private road. I could probably look it up on Google Earth, but to be honest I'm not that interested in their boring lives...

And since they could easily have simply asked for the images to be removed but didn't, it's clear (to me) they're seeing this as a get-rich-quick scheme.

Well spotted. I always thought Merikans, as in those with surnames like 'Boring', had only been around for about 400 hundred years, somewhat short of a millennium, considerably destitute for 'millennia'.

Maybe the lawyer is going for a Pulitzer.

'Google and the Borings disagree on how private the private driveway is. The Borings have said the road is tagged with a sign that reads "Private Road, No Trespassing". But Google says there was no sign and that the road is shared with other neighbors.'

Did the Borings point out the location of said sign using streetview?

But the whole point the judge made is that if they were really interested in their privacy rather than just being a pair of money-grabbers then they could have just reported to Google and asked them to remove/not to publish the images.

Instead, in an effort to "protect their right to privacy", they have launched a law suit which has projected them directly into the public eye. Nobody would have given a toss about them or their street pictures otherwise.

The only way they would have a case is if either the G-Car had to "break in" to gain access to their property or if Google refused to remove the image when requested.

Are they made with real Girl Scouts?

Anyway, they want to make a quick buck by shouting "privacy", a judge said "you're stupid" so now they are saying "it's for the little person", at the end of the day it's all about greed and more stupidity will make them less boring (but still stupid, greedy and hopefully poorer).

Anybody in The States care to organize a large flash mob to show up on this "private road" with cameras in hand, to demonstrate once and for all that the best strategy for these Boring people would be to simply STFU?

I'm on the Boring's side on this one. This is the functional equivalent of a web-spider that doesn't bother to check the robot file before crawling all over your site.

Let's leave the robotic slavery to the machine thing to the Japanese, who seem to love the intrusive and abusive.

It's apparently shared with other residents, so it's not a driveway at least in so far as we understand the term here in the UK. However they do speak a different language in the US, but when reading stories from the US we tend to read them as if they were written in English.

That, however, is not my point. This is:

Even if there was a sign I wouldn't assume, on seeing it, that it had any standing in law. I don't know exactly how the law works or people operate over there. Over here, however, such signs are quite common and are often misleading. A couple of hundred yards from my house there is a cul de sac that bears a sign reading PRIVATE ROAD NO PUBLIC ACCESS. However a quick check of public records shows the road to have been adopted by the council about thirty years ago. As such it can not be a private road. Some people want to feel they live in private gated communities when they don't. It seems to give them a feeling of power over the great unwashed, but to my mind there is a simple way to deal with these idiots. The local council, royal mail, etc. should simply stop at the sign and refuse to go further. How would they feel if their post was dumped at the end of the street, the bin men wouldn't collect their bins, the council wouldn't repair the road, the water mains became their responsibility from the main road and so on?

Within a couple of miles of here there are half a dozen similar examples, indeed such signs are so common that unless they are official looking local authority signs I assume them to be illegitimate.

Were I in Google's shoes I would set my navigation softare up using the definitive map (or whatever the US equivalent happens to be) and then there could be no reasonable argument.

BTW in English law I thought there had to be a clear boundary for trespass to be deemed to have taken place, even then the intruder must be asked to leave. Otherwise every uninvited caller to knock on my door would be guilty of trespass. The sign "Tresapassers Will Be Prosecuted" does not mean (even in Winnie the Pooh) that by being on the land you are trespassing, it means that if you trespass on the land you will be prosecuted. A subtle but important difference.

And of course, IIRC, "Tresapassers Will Be Prosecuted" has no legal meaning at all..

/pedant