No Action Is Good News For Google

The US Supreme Court decided yesterday not to hear an appeal involving Google’s Street View feature. A Pittsburgh couple had sued Google for invasion of privacy stemming from Google’s displaying a photo of the couple’s home. The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit had ruled that Google did not violate the couple’s privacy by making the photo available. The fact that the Supreme Court declined to hear the case means that the appellate decision stands, and maybe indicates that the Supreme Court doesn’t disagree with the decision. Clearly, that’s a win for the Google folks. A contrary decision could potentially shut down the feature. The case is not over, though, because the couple accused Google of trespassing when it got the photo. But that dispute is a fact based matter that has to do with the fact that the house is accessible only via a private drive. In the big picture, that’s not much of a concern.