Stars threaten to sue Google over theft of private images

Lawyers acting for Jennifer Lawrence, Rihanna, Cara Delevingne, and other stars whose private images were hacked have threatened to sue Google for $100m (€79m).

A number of female celebrities — including Kim Kardashian, Kate Upton, Amber Heard, and Selena Gomez — have had their iCloud accounts targeted and had intimate photos shared on websites Reddit and 4Chan, but legal representatives for more than a dozen of the women has slammed the online giant for allegedly failing to remove the images and “making millions from the victimisation of women”.

Lawyer Marty Singer has written a letter to Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, as well as Eric Schmidt and Google lawyers, accusing them of “blatantly unethical behaviour”.

According to the New York Post, the document claims Google failed “to act expeditiously, and responsibly to remove the images, but in knowingly accommodating, facilitating, and perpetuating the unlawful conduct”.

The lawyer pointed out that his firm sent a notice to remove the images four weeks ago, and several more since, but many of the photos are still on BlogSpot and YouTube, which are both owned by Google.

He added: “Google knows the images are hacked stolen property, private and confidential photos and videos unlawfully obtained and posted by pervert predators who are violating the victims’ privacy rights, yet Google has taken little or no action to stop these outrageous violations.

“Because the victims are celebrities with valuable publicity rights you do nothing — nothing but collect millions of dollars in advertising revenue... as you seek to capitalise on this scandal rather than quash it.”