Google has decided it is time to help victims of revenge porn, by allowing people to request that their images be pulled from Google search results.

 

Revenge porn is often used by a former friend, or more often an ex-lover, who posts intimate images of a person online without consent to do so. Some of these images will land in Google search results and link to the site hosting the images.

 

In a few weeks, a form will be introduced on Google to allow people to ask that pictures of themselves be removed. The images will still exist on the original site, of course, but Google will not link to them; this makes it much more difficult for people to find them.

 

"Revenge porn images are intensely personal and emotionally damaging, and serve only to degrade the victims - predominantly women," Senior Vice President of Google Search, Amit Singhal, wrote in a blog post. "So going forward, we'll honour requests from people to remove nude or sexually explicit images shared without their consent from Google Search results."

 

"This is a narrow and limited policy, similar to how we treat removal requests for other highly sensitive personal information, such as bank account numbers and signatures that may surface in our search results."

 

Better late than never.

 

Google to censor 'revenge porn' search results [CTV News]

 

Google cracks down on 'revenge porn' with new nudity policy  [Daily Mail]