Victims will be able to report images and take them offline

Jun 20, 2015 06:07 GMT  ·  By

In a statement long overdue, Google has announced that it will start delisting nude or sexually explicit pictures posted online without the person's consent, which are showing up in the company's Image Search results.

These types of images are notorious, their genre being called "revenge porn," and have been at the center of multiple controversies in recent years.

From the Hollywood stars exposed in The Fappening in 2014 to persons that no one has ever heard of, numerous victims exist, and they have been trying to remove their personal photos from the Internet to no avail.

A form will be provided where victims can report revenge porn images

Usually uploaded online by a spurned lover or jealous boyfriend, these photos are hard to take offline, being hosted on servers located in countries where copyright laws have no reach.

"[R]evenge porn images are intensely personal and emotionally damaging, and serve only to degrade the victims - predominantly women," says the Google statement.

The company will provide a special page where these photos can be reported in the upcoming future, and help prevent situations where some victims suffer irreparable emotional damage that in some cases has led to suicides.

The photos won't be taken offline for good, but only from Google's search results, so at least they'll be harder to get to.

An Internet-wide stand against revenge porn photos

Recently even the FTC has taken a firm attitude against this type of imagery, shutting down a website that housed thousands of revenge porn pictures.

Along with them, Reddit, Facebook, and Twitter joined in, making it a bannable offense on their sites.

In real life, things aren't better, but some countries have started taking a stand against this issue. Posting revenge porn images online in England and Wales could land you two years in jail, with Scotland and Northern Ireland currently pondering a similar law as well.

In the US, there's now federal legislature in place, but a few states like Colorado, Idaho, California and twenty others have put state-level laws in place, some even since 2013. They won't land you in jail in most states, but a hefty fine is applicable.