On the verge of a $100 million lawsuit over the release of private photos of celebrities on the Internet, Google issued the following statement mocking the photo leaks.
"We have deleted tens of thousands of photos within hours of being asked and have closed hundreds of user accounts," a Google spokesperson told Mashable in an email. "The Internet is used for many good things. Stealing other people's private photos is not one of them.".
Lawyer Marty Singer, who claims to represent several famous women, says in a letter to Google that they did not do enough to limit the circulation of these photos on the internet.
“Google profits and makes millions from the victimization of these women,” the letter states.
Among other demands, it calls for YouTube and Google accounts that have personal photos of celebrities to be blocked or deleted, as well as for all images available from search engines to be deleted.
Singer goes on to claim that several websites hosting such images agreed to remove them after he contacted them. However, Google “blatantly allowed these egregious violations to continue with a knowing disregard for the rights of our customers.”
The photos began circulating online over Labor Day weekend, on websites like 4Chan and a Reddit group called “The Fappening.” Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton and Kirsten Dunst are among the celebrities whose photos were stolen and posted.
It appears that these personal photos were taken from compromised iCloud accounts, and in response to these accusations, Apple CEO Tim Cook has increased the service's security. However, as has been heard, the incident of the theft and release of these photos has reached the FBI, which is conducting a related investigation.
