Google will honor requests to remove from search results nude or sexually explicit images posted on the Internet without consent.

Amit Singhal, senior vice president of Google Search said: "Our philosophy has always been that search should reflect the whole Web. But revenge porn images are intensely personal and emotionally damaging, and serve only to degrade the victim — predominantly women."

Victims will be able to submit a request in the next few weeks to have content removed.

"We know this won't solve the problem of revenge porn — we aren't able, of course, to remove these images from the websites themselves — but we hope that honoring people's requests to remove such imagery from our search results can help," Singhal wrote.

University of Maryland law professor Danielle Citron said: "What we have seen in the last six months is this public consciousness about the profound economic and social impact of that posting nude images without someone's consent and often in violation of their trust can have on people's lives. What victims will often tell you and what they tell me is that what they want most is not to have search results where their employers, clients and colleagues can Google them and see these nude photos. It's not just humiliating, it wrecks their chances for employment. It makes them undatable and unemployable."

Under a federal Internet law passed in 1996, Internet providers and websites aren't legally responsible for third party content posted by users as long as that content does not violate intellectual property laws or federal criminal laws.

Source: USAToday