Everyday, thousands of people all over the world wake up to the realization that nude pictures of themselves have appeared online. It could be that you were the victim of a targeted attack, or just a vengeful ex looking to get back at you. Whatever the case, these pictures can be damming to your career prospects, your future relationships and your life. If you, or someone you know, has had this horrible thing happen then you’ll be pleased to know that Google can help remove some of that content from search.
Google has a public policy that acknowledges the terrible truth: sometimes, vengeful people do awful things. One widespread method is to post naked pictures of that person online. These compromising pictures are often shared consensually, and they are taken under the knowledge that they will be kept private.
Google has laid out certain requirements it uses to determine if your content fits this profile:
- The subject of the photo or video, and the person making the request, must be nude or shown in a compromising sexual act.
- The content must be intended for a private audience, such as sharing between spouses.
- If the second condition is true, it follows that the subject never consented to making this information publicly available.
As long as you can prove that your content meets these conditions, Google should help you take this content off of search. It’s important to note that this only applies to Google search. Google will also display a notice that certain content was removed from the search results. The content still exists on whatever website is hosting it, which can creep up in other ways.
What if your next potential employer or spouse uses a different search engine to find information about you? What if this person is tipped off that your videos or photos exist? For these reasons, reputation management is a route you might want to look into. Reputation management offers long term solutions to these types of problems, including complete removal of your compromised content.
