A man who fell asleep in a drunken stupor 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.
Within days a photographic record of the neighbourhood and its unusual presence was available for worldwide viewing.
...
One woman who wrote to a Sydney newspaper said she was mortified after logging onto the site.
'Both my parents were pictured outside their house, but my dad passed away a month ago,' said Janice Creenaune.
'While recognising that Google-time is never real-time, the image renews the raw loss,' she said.
Another letter writer, Elizabeth Maher was, however, delighted.
'While others may have legitimate complaints about Google publishing pictures of their house, I was delighted to view ours, with me pictured hard at work in the garden, complete with broom and bucket, thereby dispelling any uncertainty as to who is the gardener in the family.'
A spokesman for Google Australia, Mr Rob Shilkin, said the company had taken significant steps to protect the privacy of individuals, including face-blurring and tools for people to flag sensitive imagery for removal.
Since Bill's case became known to Google Australia, his embarrassing sleep-in has been removed from the site.
And most importantly...where the hell does that driveway go exactly? Into the fence? And people claim Aussieland isn't an upside down country.
