Summary: Google has been forced to respond to the threat of a $100 million lawsuit regarding the leaked nude photos of multiple female celebrities.
After Google was accused of aiding the nude photo leaks that have occurred over the past couple of weeks, the search engine giant said that it removed ‘tens of thousands’ of the leaked photos, according to ZDNet.
Google was threatened with a $100 million lawsuit by lawyers representing some of the actresses whose photos were hacked and then leaked online earlier this week.
Google has been accused of ignoring requests to remove the photos that are hosted on Google properties by the lawyers.
“We’ve removed tens of thousands of pictures — within hours of the requests being made — and we have closed hundreds of accounts,” Google said in a statement sent to ZDNet. “The internet is used for many good things. Stealing people’s private photos is not one of them.”
Google was also accused of failing to quickly remove the photos as required by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The lawyers for the victims asked Google to remove the images from YouTube and Blogger while terminating or suspending accounts with the photos.
Lawyers claim that four weeks from sending the initial DMCA notice to remove the photos, and filing a dozen more since then, the images are still found on Google websites.
The lawyers claim that the company is “making millions and profiting from the victimisation of women.”
Image credit: Google