It's been nearly two months since hackers leaked a series of nude photos of Jennifer Lawrence and a number of other female celebrities, and finally some progress has been made in removing easy access to the images. The Guardian reports that Google has removed two links to sites that host Lawrence's stolen photos, after the actress's lawyers filed a takedown request under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Lawrence's legal team claims reposting the images is a violation of her copyright, but removing them hasn't been so simple:
The site removed from Google’s search results has since changed its domain, which has caused the site to be re-indexed by Google and reappear in search results under the different website address. The takedown notice did not list the new domain, requiring another request to be filed to remove it from the search results.
The site hosting the photos targeted by Lawrence’s lawyers claims that it will take down the stolen photos if requested.
Google has been criticized for failing to remove the images sooner, which top entertainment attorney Martin Singer calls "blatantly unethical behavior." In an early October letter to the search giant, Singer threatened to sue Google for $100 million if the photos were not cleared from search results. “Google knows the images are hacked stolen property, private and confidential photos and videos unlawfully obtained and posted by pervert predators who are violating the victims’ privacy rights," Singer wrote. "Yet Google has taken little or no action to stop these outrageous violations.”
Repeating an earlier statement on the removal of the image results, Google affirmed that it would continue working to get rid of the photos. "We’ve removed tens of thousands of pictures -- within hours of the requests being made -- and we have closed hundreds of accounts. The internet is used for many good things. Stealing people’s private photos is not one of them.”
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