Google threatened with $100M lawsuit over nude celebrity photos
Lawyer representing hacked stars accuses tech giant of 'acting like the NFL'
Marty Singer, a Los Angeles lawyer representing over a dozen female celebrities, is threatening to sue Google for $100 million US over nude photos leaked online from personal iCloud accounts.
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In a letter from the law firm Lavely & Singer obtained by the Hollywood Reporter, Singer accuses the web giant of "accommodating, facilitating and perpetuating" the distribution of the photos when it failed to remove the images from its search results.
"Like the NFL, which turned a blind eye while its players assaulted and victimized women and children, Google has turned a blind eye while its sites repeatedly exploit and victimize these women," the statement reads, likening Google's response to the nude photo leak to the football league's recent domestic abuse scandal.
The legal threat follows the leak of intimate photos of stars like Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton and Selena Gomez on an image-sharing site in August. Kim Kardashian, Vanessa Hudgens and U.S. soccer star Hope Solo were among the targets of a later leak in September.
Singer did not name the stars involved in his law firm's action, but he alleges many of their photos still exist on Google sites like BlogSpot and YouTube four weeks after his firm demanded that they be taken down.