After being accused of failing to remove leaked photos of nude celebrities in its search engine results, Google has now released an official statement as a response to such claims, as reported by The Telegraph.
A spokesperson for the tech giant stated that Google carried out immediate and appropriate action, and had removed tens of thousands of photos within a couple of hours after these were leaked. Moreover, hundreds of accounts have also been taken down.
"We've removed tens of thousands of pictures, within hours of the requests being made, and we have closed hundreds of accounts," said the company's spokesperson. "The Internet is used for many good things. Stealing people's private photos is not one of them."
This was the main response of Google toward the allegations made by Attorney Marty Singer, legal representative for numerous Hollywood female celebrities who were victims of photo hacking. A letter was sent on Oct. 1 containing the accusation that Google was unable "to act expeditiously" in the midst of the scandal. The company's lack of effort is considered to be highly unacceptable.
Furthermore, Singer stated that despite sending a number of reminders to the company with regards to the removal of the photos on its search engine results, a large number of images can still be viewed on Google, YouTube, and BlogSpot.
Singer claimed that the tech company "is making millions and profiting from the victimization of women."
Such claims have come about after photos of nude celebrities were leaked on several websites, including 4chan and Reddit. These images allegedly belong to Hollywood female celebrities, including Jennifer Lawrence, Kim Kardashian, Ariane Grande, Kate Upton, and Selena Gomez, to name a few.
As numerous personalities were targeted, the nude photo hacking incident has been considered the biggest celebrity scandal in history.
According to Singer, Google already knew that the private photos were stolen and leaked, but the company did not take the appropriate action to put a stop to such infringements. The lawyer also emphasized that social media sites, such as Twitter, were capable of responding well and taking immediate action.
Google has then underlined the need for the company to be first notified about the content of the photo hacking incident before they are able to make a final decision. As such, the company is now working toward removing all hacked photos from all hosted and owned websites to avoid a court case that is worth a whopping $100 million.
