Bill's friend, the one with whom he was going on a motorbike holiday in Tasmania, suddenly died. Bill, being upset, went out and got drunk.

A cab dropped him off back at his house. But he collapsed before he could get to his front door.

So along came a friendly Google StreetView camera car. The Australian version of the service was to be launched August 4. So the Googler had a lot of filming to do.

He shot the prostrate Bill who was lying on his back, his feet sticking out into the road.

The driver didn't stop to see whether Bill was all right. He didn't even get out of his camera car to move Bill's feet away from the curb. Like a TMZ.com paparazzo, his deadline seemed to be more important than something that could have been a dead body.

Did his shot of the beFostered Bill make the first edition of Google StreetView Australia? Too right, mate.

Who was the anti-Samaritan driving that Google camera car? Are his parents made of metal? What sort of instructions did he have? Why didn't he get out to help? And why didn't anyone at Google Australia notice that there was, well, a body lying in the street? (Google only removed the image after Bill's story came to light)

I know that people make jokes about Google being the quintessential engineering company. And that is something this blog will never stoop to (being an engineering company, that is).

But I hope you, too, would like to know how the company reacted to one of its drivers leaving a man lying in the street while he filmed him.

said by Jeffrey :

I was under the impression that there was no expectation of privacy in public, but perhaps I don't quite understand where this guy was sleeping it off.

said by TKJunkMail :

This wasn't a "privacy issue" story, but about a driver ignoring either a dead body on the street or someone in serious difficulty with a possible injury. More a "what kind of contractors does Google hire" story.