Google Updates Policies To Help Victims Of 'Revenge Porn'
By Melony Roy
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Google is updating its policies to address a growing problem in the digital age. The tech giant updated its policy to help protect victims of "revenge porn."
Google announced it will let victims of revenge porn -- usually women whose unauthorized naked pictures wre posted online by an ex -- ask for the removal of web pages containing those pictures from its search results.
Drexel University professor Andrea Forte explains what this update now means:
"They're not getting rid of the porn itself," Forte said. "But they're dramatically limiting the ability of people to find that content and for it to spread."
Google says its "philosophy has always been that Search should reflect the whole web." But it acknowledges in a blog statement that "revenge porn images are intensely personal and emotionally damaging and serve only to degrade the victims -- predominately women"
"So, by saying we're going to limit the extent to which this content can spread," Forte adds, "Google is doing something very powerful by taking away some of that power to harm people."
In a blog post, the company acknowledges the new policy will not entirely solve the problem of revenge porn since the company can not delete the underlying web site from the Internet.
Richard Pierce, a Philadelphia-based intellectual property lawyer, says the policy is unlikely to stir controversy.
"They're not denying people the ability to post this stuff, they're just making it harder to find via their search engine," he explains.
The updated policy also comes as more states move to address the problem with new criminal laws.
"I'm sure that there is some element of society that'll be upset that they wont be able to find nude pictures of people as easily," Pierce says. "But for the majority of Americans, it's something that they're going to be in favor of because, if they ever fell victim to it or know somebody who has, they know how troubling it could be to get rid of it."
In the coming weeks, Google says, it will put up a web-based form that people can use to submit requests for search removals.
