Google’s Street View controversy heats up.

A man who fell asleep while he was drunk on the grass outside his home was horrified to find his embarrassment posted on the internet.

He had been drowning his sorrows over the death of a friend and collapsed after climbing out of a taxi. As he slept off his excesses, a car-mounted video camera passed by to record pictures of the street for Google’s StreetView website.

But the latest victim, who gave his name only as ‘Bill’, is not planning an official complaint.

‘I’m not too happy about it’ said Bill.

The new Google service has been at the centre of controversy over claims that it represents a breach of privacy.

I remember April of this year a couple sued Google claiming that the web giant’s popular “Street View” mapping feature has made a photo of their home available to online searchers. Google’s answer to this - Arguing that technology has ensured that “complete privacy does not exist,” Google contends that a Pennsylvania family has no legal grounds to sue the search giant for publishing photos of their home on its popular “Street View” mapping feature.

While I support Google in these cases becasue this was all an “unintentional technical trespass”. And also because there is a process to request removal of privacy-sensitive photos from Street View I really see these suits just money grabbers.

Street View isn’t yet available in Canada but has been expanding in the United States since being launched in May. Canada’s privacy commissioner “Jennifer Stoddart ” has been googling Google, and she’s raising concerns over the search engine’s new Street View web photo application.

A number of websites carry satellite images or low-resolution photographs and video. Stoddart doesn’t have a problem with those. However, she warned that high-resolution pictures such as those available on Street View could contravene the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, which came into effect on Jan. 1, 2004.

In a letter to Immersive Media’s CEO Myles McGovern, the commissioner said she is aware the company already has images of Canada in its database. Stoddart’s office has not given Google or Immersive Media a specific deadline for responding to her concerns. More details on this posting at cbc.ca site can be found here.

It seems like Google’s problems are not ending soon and they will certainly have trouble launching Google Street’s in Canada.

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