It’s about damn time. Now that about half the states in the nation have passed laws banning revenge porn and several people have been convicted under those laws, Google says it will finally give revenge porn victims the option to get said revenge porn removed from searches. 
 
 The search giant made the announcement today on its public policy blog. The plan for removing links to revenge porn sounds pretty similar to the way that many state laws address the issue—very carefully, given the First Amendment implications involved. Amit Singhal, head of Google Search, writes: 
 
 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 victims—predominantly women. So going forward, we’ll honor requests from people to remove nude or sexually explicit images shared without their consent from Google Search results. This is a narrow and limited policy, similar to how we treat removal requests for other highly sensitive personal information, such as bank account numbers and signatures, that may surface in our search results.In the coming weeks we’ll put up a web form people can use to submit these requests to us, and we’ll update this blog post with the link. 
 
 Singal adds that a form that will allow victims to send in requests will appear “in the coming weeks.” Exactly how Google will vet those requests remains unclear. 
 
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 Either way, it’s a tremendous step forward in the way-too-arduous fight to put a stop to this vile behavior. There’s also a bill due to be introduced soon to the House of Representatives that would make revenge porn a federal offense. While debating that legislation is sure to turn into a free speech battle, it’s encouraging that companies as big and powerful as Google are taking a strong stance on this issue. Let’s hope others follow. 

 Google's Mountain View, Calif., campus (Photo: Martin E. Klimek, USA TODAY) 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO —In a significant step to combat "revenge porn," Google will honor requests to remove from search results nude or sexually explicit images posted on the Internet without consent. 
 
 Google says it will remove the search results the same way it does other sorts of highly sensitive personal information such as bank account numbers and Social Security numbers. 
 
 "Our philosophy has always been that search should reflect the whole Web," Amit Singhal, senior vice president of Google Search said in a blog post provided to USA TODAY. "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 requests through an online form in coming weeks, Google said. 
 
 "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, an expert in online harassment and author of Hate Crimes in Cyberspace, applauded the move. The search engine used the world over has unparalleled influence over what people can and cannot find on the Internet. 
 
 Google and other technology companies have come under growing public pressure to take down intimate photos posted without the subject's consent and remove links to that content. 
 
 Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) is about to introduce federal legislation that would ban revenge porn. Comedian John Oliver is planning to feature the subject Sunday on his HBO show Last Week Tonight. 
 
 "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," Citron said. "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." 
 
 She says Google's decision is consistent with its policies. 
 
 "Some special narrow categories of sensitive personal information have no value to public debate and exact serious harm," Citron said. 
 
 Google usually only removes search results with a valid legal request. It makes an exception for images of child sexual abuse and sensitive information such as bank account numbers and signatures. 
 
 In Europe, under the right to be forgotten law, Google has removed nearly 1 million links. The ruling gives European residents the ability to demand that search engines remove links that appear in searches for an individual's name, but so far only in Europe. 
 
 "Google has long been hesitant to mess with its search results and there are some good reasons for that. If you pull out one kind of content, other people will want you to pull out another kind of content and it can become a slippery slope," said Danny Sullivan, founding editor of SearchEngineLand.com. "Having said that, this is one of those cases where I think people would nod in agreement that yes, this is terrible, this stuff should be removed." 
 
 Sullivan said Google's decision could have a deterrent effect. 
 
 "If it's not in Google, does it actually exist? The answer is yes, it does exist but it's a heck of a lot harder to find. Even this won't make it impossible but it does make it more difficult and, when it's more difficult, it makes it less attractive for people to do this kind of behavior." 
 
 Yet for years there was little anyone could do when intimate photos appeared online. 
 
 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. 
 
 But government officials are now going after people who leak the images and the web sites that profit from them. 
 
 New Jersey passed the first law addressing revenge porn in 2004. Since then, 18 states have passed laws criminalizing revenge porn — the most recent law was signed this week by Vermont governor Peter Shumlin. 
 
 The Federal Trade Commission has also started cracking down. Earlier this year it announced a settlement with the operator of an alleged revenge porn site that banned him from publishing nude pictures of people without their consent and required him to destroy the photo collection. 
 
 With the growing backlash against revenge porn, technology companies are also taking a stand. In March, Twitter became the latest Internet company to enact explicit rules that ban the posting of nude photographs and videos without the subject's permission. Facebook also banned revenge porn in March. 
 
 Reddit banned it in February. Last year a 4Chan poster hacked into celebrities' iCloud accounts and posted naked photos of Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton among others on a Reddit subgroup, "The Fappening." Reddit allowed the photos to remain on the site. 
 
 Some people don't think the policies go far enough because they still require women to police their own harassment. 
 
 And Speier says "there is still a gaping hole in the law that leaves victims with little or no legal recourse." 
 
 "Without legislation, there's nothing to stop revenge porn websites and nothing preventing people from uploading this content with impunity," she said. 
 
 But Citron says Google's new policy represents progress. 
 
 "We have come to a cultural consensus that the exploitation of nude photos and videos without consent is unacceptable, harmful, and valueless and Google is recognizing it with its new position in search results," she said. "This is the next crucial, logical step." 
 
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 Google says it cannot remove images from the websites, but will remove them from Google search results. 
 
 Google will join the fight against so-called revenge porn. 
 
 Soon victims of revenge porn will be able to ask Google to take down content from search results. 
 
 The move was praised as a significant step forward, given Google search's breadth of influence. 
 
 "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," University of Maryland law professor Danielle Citron, an expert in online harassment and author of Hate Crimes in Cyberspace, told USA Today. "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." 
 
 The company’s Vice President Amit Singhal said in a blog post posted on Friday that although Google believes that search should reflect the whole web, “revenge porn images are intensely personal and emotionally damaging, and serve only to degrade the victims—predominantly women.” 
 
 “In the coming weeks we’ll put up a web form people can use to submit these requests to us, and we’ll update this blog post with the link,” Mr. Singhal added. 
 
 The images will not be removed from the websites, but will not appear in Google search results. 
 
 Revenge porn is a term for the online posing of explicit photos of people without their permission. These images sometimes end up on “sextortion” sites intended to coerce victims into making payments, having sex or performing sexual favors. 
 
 The practice first came to public attention in 2010 a website "Is Anyone Up" began posting revenge porn photographs, until its founder Hunter Moore shut down the website in 2012. Named by Rolling Stone “the most hated man on the Internet”, Mr. Moore was arrested in January 2014 and pleaded guilty in Los Angeles court in February. 
 
 Revenge porn laws already exist in some US states. In October 2013 California Gov. Jerry Brown signed the first-in-the-nation law criminalizing revenge porn. 
 
 Two months later, Kevin Bollaert, a 28-year-old revenge porn website operator from San Diego was arrested. In April 2015 Mr. Bollaert was sentenced to 18 years in prison. 
 
 As of June 1st, 21 states have laws against revenge porn, according to law firm C. A. Goldberg. 
 
 Social media sites are also taking steps to crack down on revenge porn. 
 
 Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter – three of the biggest social media sites in the world – have issued new policies against revenge porn. According to their new policies, all three platforms will delete offensive content and in some cases ban the user from their platforms. 
 
 Charlotte Laws, a prominent anti-revenge porn activist told The Christian Science Monitor in March that the practice will fade away when Internet users as a whole band together against the revenge porn. Ms. Laws has launched the “The Tribute Movement" project where strangers send compliments to people being harassed. 
 
 “This is essentially a push for people online to spring into action when they notice someone being bullied,” Laws said. 
 
 Google Singhal writes that its current decision will not solve the problem of revenge porn, but he hopes that “honoring people’s requests to remove such imagery” from their search results will help.
– Google is putting its heavy muscle behind the movement to wipe out revenge porn. The company announced yesterday that it would honor requests to remove such images from search results, reports the Christian Science Monitor. Online forms will be available in a matter of weeks. "Our philosophy has always been that Search should reflect the whole web," says a Google blog post. "But revenge porn images are intensely personal and emotionally damaging, and serve only to degrade the victims—predominantly women." It sees the move as "a narrow and limited policy" in line with how it treats requests to delete other personal information such as bank account numbers. The company also points out that it can't remove the images themselves from wherever they've been posted, but advocates are still hailing the move. "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," a University of Maryland law professor tells USA Today. At Gizmodo, Adam Clark Estes puts it more forcefully: "It's about damn time," he writes, calling Google's move "a tremendous step forward in the way-too-arduous fight to put a stop to this vile behavior." About 20 states currently outlaw revenge porn, and a bill will be introduced in the House soon to make it a federal crime.