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Posts Tagged ‘privacy’

A legal claim by a Pittsburgh couple that Google’s Street View feature violated their privacy has been thrown out by a federal judge.

Christine and Aaron Boring sued the search giant after photos of their home appeared on the free mapping program.

The couple accused Google of privacy violation, negligence, trespassing and unjust enrichment.

In her ruling, Judge Amy Reynolds Hay said the Borings “failed to state a claim under any count”.

“We are pleased the judge agreed the suit was without merit,” said Google in a statement to the BBC.

Street View displays street level, 360-degree photographs of areas taken by specially equipped Google vehicles.

Failure

The photographs at the centre of the lawsuit, launched last year, were taken at the foot of Mr and Mrs Boring’s driveway and shows their house, a pool area and detached garage. Signs marked the road as private.

The suit alleged that Google’s Street View had caused Mr and Mrs Boring “mental suffering” and diluted the value of their home.

Click here to read this entire article on the BBC’s website.

Protect your online identity

Did you know that when you register a domain name, the contact details you supply are made publicly available using a service called ‘whois‘?

This information is held by the domain registrar companies and is perfectly legal in all countries.
As this information is easily accessed by the public it can be a source of SPAM, email marketing and even could be used to try and steal your domain name.

Don’t Panic, help is at hand and it is very easy, all you need to do is login to your Mantis Computing Client Area and from here you can tick the box that says ‘Opt out of whois’ – this is free for .co.uk domains, .com and others do have a small charge of approx £10.

If you want to find out more about this service then please get in touch.