Removing a link doesn't make the content go away and blacklisting a domain doesn't mean another won't pop up

Oct 23, 2014 09:56 GMT  ·  By

As celebrities threaten to sue Google for allowing links to the nude pictures that were leaked a few weeks back, the company has failed to do this. That’s because while one site may be taken down, another will pop up, as is the way of the Internet.

On Monday, the giant managed to successfully take down one website that was hosting the nude pictures of Jennifer Lawrence and other celebrities. Within hours, however, the photos were back online after the host changed the domain name, effectively dodging the Google-imposed blockade.

Google was threatened with a $100 million lawsuit following the massive leak of photographs that were made public. At the end of August, unidentified hackers released the first batch of pictures after breaking into iCloud accounts of various celebrities. The photos were made available via the 4Chan online forum.

Marty Singer, a famous Hollywood lawyer, has sent Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin a letter accusing them of unethical behavior. He states that, because the victims are celebrities with valuable publicity rights, they just sit around, doing nothing but collect millions of dollars in advertising revenue. “You seek to capitalize on this scandal rather than quash it,” the letter reads.

Google defended itself at the time, saying that they had already removed tens of thousands of pictures within hours of the request being made, while hundreds of accounts were closed in addition. “The Internet is used for many good things. Stealing people’s private photos is not one of them.”

As Google points out, there are many things happening on the Internet and not all of them are nice, or even legal for that matter. But Google can’t spend its time policing the Internet, no matter how much some people would like it.

One gets taken down, another one rises

As copyright owners have learned the hard way, if Google blacklists one link, another will appear in the next few hours. The same has happened with the nude pictures of these celebrities. Just because Google has blocked a couple of sites, it doesn’t mean much, since there are plenty of ways to get around this, both for the sites and the viewers who really want to get their hands on the images.

On the one hand, those who want to see the pictures can do this quite easily by going to the site directly, if they know the address. On the other, Google will index most new sites. When one website keeps its name but moves its domain name from .com to .org, for instance, Google will largely see it as a new addition.

This tactic has been adopted by countless sites so far, not only to dodge Google, but also ISP-wide blockades. It’s a mechanism protection, if you will.

The Internet regenerates itself, it lives and breathes and it’s always changing, keeping up with the times, with the threats.

Google isn’t the police of the Internet and it’s not even the gateway to it. There are plenty other search engines out there that can be used by anyone that’s unhappy with Google’s search results and they’re not going to take out links to celeb nude pictures.

The fact is that getting Google to remove various links will not solve the problem and it will not make the pictures vanish from the Internet. It will, however, make it harder to track. If the sites keep changing and the pictures keep getting reposted, however, this is a losing battle, not matter how disgusting it is that these images landed on the Internet in the first place.