Google publishes the locations where it is filming: while the court case is heard in Bern, Google Street View crews are out in cantons Ticino, Valais and Zurich Thursday
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A Swiss high court today will hear the case for Google’s widely popular Street Views, which have been the subject of a legal tangle in Switzerland almost since the company began publishing them in August 2009. The court will have a full house for the 10:00 hearing, with all seats reserved.
The government and Google in December 2009 reached an agreement limiting the use of Street Views in Switzerland until the case could be heard by the high court.
The Swiss Federal Administrative Tribunal, one of Switzerland’s three high courts, Thursday 24 February hears “A-7040/2009, Google Street View”, brought by the federal data protection and information commissioner against Google Inc. and Google Switzerland.
Today Google will argue 10 reasons why Street Views should be allowed in Switzerland, with the emphasis on equal treatment: its street views provide no more information than images carried by Internet media of people and places or, for that matter, the company argues, the federal government web site.
Its case will be watched carefully because of court cases in other countries, with Canada and Australia among the countries where Google has had legal problems over Street View.
Its other arguments include:
Part of a Google street view of Geneva's rue du Rhone, faces blurred in line with Swiss privacy laws
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Google maps, the application from internet giant Google, just released a new version of its maps application that includes street views, seamless 360° views of the centre of most Swiss cities. Taken by vans that cruised around the city centre taking countless photographs, the project has caused concern around the world because of the implicatons for privacy.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Judge Eric Cottier in Lausanne is opening a complementary inquiry in the trial of an ex-senior manager at radio station RSR in order to clarify the role of pornographic images at the centre of the case. According to 20 Minutes the judge has complained that the case brought before him is not sufficiently clear, and he is asking the police, who confiscated the images from a company server, to bring them to the court.
