Google Responds to $100M Lawsuit Threat over Hacked Celeb Photos

One day after being threatened with a $100 million lawsuit over hacked celebrity photos, Google says it is trying its best to get as many of the explicit and private pics of Jennifer Lawrence and others off its sites and search engines as possible. “We’ve removed tens of thousands of pictures, within hours of the requests being made, and we have closed hundreds of accounts,” said a spokesperson for the tech giant in a statement today. “The Internet is used for many good things. Stealing people’s private photos is not one of them.” While not directly addressing issues of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the claims of victimization by lawyer Marty Singer, Google adds that like other online companies it also relies on being notifying of such content either directly or by the filing of “valid” DMCA requests.​​ Singer’s letter stated that his law firm had sent over a dozen such requests to Google to have the material in question removed with no response. Sites like Twitter, on the other hand, Singer says, have “accommodated” the demands quickly.