Google updates its policies on revenge porn in search results

Today, Google announced it is updating features in Google Search, including its policies on personal explicit images. The announcement coincided with Google policy updates on personal information in search results, and the blurring of explicit images in Search.

Users have had the ability to remove non-consensual explicit imagery (which often takes the shape of revenge porn) from Google Search for a while now, but Google is updating this feature to allow users to remove any of their personal, explicit images — whether they were posted consensually the first time or not. Because, as we all know, consent can be taken away at any time.

For instance, if a user posted an explicit image of themselves on their own website, decided a few weeks later that they wanted to delete it, and removed it from their site, that image could still be searchable on Google Search if someone else published that photo on another site. Now, users can request to remove that image, too. Google notes, however, that this policy "doesn’t apply to content you are currently commercializing." Google is also simplifying the way users submit requests to remove these kinds of images.

"We know it's important to stay in control of your online experience," Google said in a press release. "These new tools and updates are some of the many ways we’re continuing to make Google the safest way to Search."

In this announcement, Google also noted that it will provide an easier way for users to find and remove results about themselves and that it is launching its new SafeSearch blurring setting later this month.