Cheating Husband Caught On Google Street View: UK Sun

The Sun:

A FURIOUS wife has called in divorce lawyers after spotting her husband's car parked outside another woman's house -- on Google.

She saw the Range Rover while using the internet giant's new Street View service to snoop on a female friend's home.

Read the whole story: The Sun

Comments

[Acenate]

This story is a hoax. http://idiotforever.wordpress.com/2009/03/31/how-i-duped-the-sun/

I suppose you run the risk of this happening when you link to such a story.

[DKLabRat]

Oh my! You mean....I can't trust what's written in the Sun to be true?

Suddenly my world makes no sense!

Yeah...right. I wouldn't trust that rag to get the weather right, so you do shock me with this one!

[MTGradwell]

Actually the story about the story being a hoax is itself a hoax. Complicated, isn't it?

Mark Stephens, the real media lawyer Mark Stephens, wrote in the UK Times, several days before the Sun article,

"... my divorce department has just received its first instructions based on a wife who spotted her husband’s Range Rover at a lady friend’s house ..." Everything's there, including the "blinged-up" hubcaps detail.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article5976443.ece

This doesn't make the story any less ridiculous, but it does how how careful and sceptical you have to be, regardless of the source of a story, and how likely it is that you'll be fooled occasionally no matter how much care you take.

[KOisGod]

Soviet union style goes hi-tech. Soon, we'll be emplanted at birth with "GOOGLE LOCATORS' so throught out our lifetime, our every move, shopping habit, eating perference on and on can be monitored and tracked all in favor of directing targeted advertizing in pursuit of the all might God, money. I can see it controlling our cars, guiding them into Target and Walmart parking lots and beaming in a fresh commercial, over riding whatever audio source is playing, even turning on our car radio, to tell us of what we MUST go get.

All hail the mighty dollar, we owe so much to thee.

OK - I'm done.

[pacart]

The story is obviously complete nonsense. US readers might not know it but the UK media is now completely debased. Instead of journalists they have churnalists. They don't find stories or investigate, they don't even check facts. They just sit in offices and regurgitate whatever crap is sent to them over the wire. This story was probably made up by the "top media lawyer" quoted in the article or his PR company. He gets a name check (free publicity), the Sun fills a page, they are both happy. If you have anything to sell, make up a story about it (preferably tittilating), a fatuous poll or survey can fit the bill, send it to the UK media, they will print it, they don't care anymore.

[onalimb]

Don't like Google spying on people.
Seems like an invasion of privacy and people could be wrongfully accused and we certainly have enough people who have nothing better to do than spy on others.
To poster below - there is invisibility technology in the works but it sucks that we feel the need to resort to such things.

[amdezurik]

the only thing this woman has accomplished is to make sure her "friends" know that she is a person who snoops on others when she thinks she won't get caught. There is no way she could know before she filed for divorce what date that picture was taken. Even if she found that out and realized it was HER on that day visiting her (ex)friend the husband needs to get rid of her before she gets more abusive.

[dimplesmile7]

Goodbye to the TV show Cheaters, hello Google!

[HatingTheGame]

Basically technology has to leap frog each other -- a smarter mousetrap leads to a smarter mouse.

Next step: stealth technologies for your body and your car - block satellite imagery by creating a light bending forcefield around you so Google Earth (and other spooks) can't scope you.

Now that would be cool.

[Troutboi]

Whats next? A Google Night Scope???

[S1m0n]

Does she understand that the pictures aren't live?

[MTGradwell]

Apparently not. "The hubby had claimed he was away on business, but his missus recognised his motor immediately because of its blinged-up hubcaps". And so a husband who very likely really was away on business gets divorced because of a photo that was taken several months earlier, at a time when the wife had borrowed hubby's car to visit a friend, or when they were both visiting the friend together.

But you have to realize that this is The Sun we're talking about, not some newspaper. It's a bird-cage liner produced by Rupert Murdoch for the lowest common denominator. The story is one about typical Sun readers, and for typical Sun readers. It could well be a complete fabrication - there's nothing in it which would allow for verification, no names, no location, only the car model and the "blinged-up hubcaps". We should only take it seriously if Google acknowledges that it has received a complaint.

[callanish]

Here's what I don't get. How did she know what date it was when the Range Rover was parked outside her girlfriends house? She said her husband was out of town that day, but it's not like the Google photo car goes by that house everyday. it's a one shot deal until maybe they update the maps a year for now and it's not like the date is plastered all over the google view pictures. I know he's busted probably just being at the friends house, but saying I was out of town and not knowing when the Google view pictures were taken doesn't make sense to me. Someone want to explain that one?

[karinova]

Wonder if she got driving directions to the house as well.
Heh.

[wadenelson1]

Couldn't possibly have been a similar color and model of vehicle, now could it?

[Trittydi]

This is awesome!! -- A new tool to help catch re-Thug perverts!!
*

[WasteNJ]

If your wife is that suspicious that she's looking for you on Google maps... Good luck pal.

[Seamus]

So we can't go out in our streets anymore without someone watching? This is a creepy, in-your-face story.

[ibsteve2u]

Least Google lets you know up front, and is likely doing America a favor by gently practicing a little behavior modification.

You see, one of the things they did under the Patriot Act was to start pointing spy satellites at America.

Be best to remember that.

[Seamus]

And most of us look the other way.

[ImaSpeakonit]

I pulled up my own house on this service and it disturbed my spirit! The only saving grace was, it still showed a tree in front of my house that I had removed last summer!

[ImaSpeakonit]

When I do it again and that tree is gone...I won't be happy and will be on the phone with my attorneys!

[karinova]

"So we can't go out in our streets anymore without someone watching?"

Well, no.
But we never could. That's the nature of "public."
You don't need a spy satellite to observe someone's parked car sitting at the curb, or take picture of it. In fact, forget about your car-- Google's almost certainly got a picture of your actual house!

...As can anyone walking down your street.

But it's incidental; no one cares. It's only creepy if you think about it too much.
Or, to put it another way: being SEEN is not the same as being WATCHED.
(For example, I'm sure I appear in the backgrounds of dozens of photos taken by strangers. But I don't obsess about it. In fact, I've never even thought about it until now! If they notice me at all, it's probably only to be like, "who's this chick messing up my shot?")

[ena]

Orwellian isn't it?