Urinating Frenchman loses case against Google
A Google Street View from the French town of Angers near where a Frenchman was captured urinating in his garden by a Google camera van.
A Frenchman who was shown urinating in his garden by Google's Street View web application has lost a legal case taken against the internet giant's French subsidiary.
The man from a village near the western town of Angers says he became a "laughing stock" after the image taken by a Google camera car in November 2010 was published globally, AFP's local correspondent reports.
However a French court ruled that the man should have taken a case against the US parent company Google Inc, which published the photo, and not Google France.
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He was ordered to pay legal costs equivalent to about US$1500 to Google for bringing forward a "badly prepared" case, Digital Spy reports.
Google had agreed to take the picture down after the man complained, but refused to pay US$13,000 in damages.
Speaking to the local Ouest-France newspaper, Google's lawyer Christophe Bigot described the plaintiff as a "bad bedfellow" looking to make a quick buck.
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