Google threatened with $100m lawsuit over leaked celebrity photos

Larry Page, Eric Schmidt and Sergey Brin could be facing an expensive Hollywood problem.

According to the New York Post's Page Six, lawyers for numerous female celebrities whose private and nude photos were hacked have said they will sue Google for over $100 million for its alleged failure to take down the images.

The lawyer, Marty Singer, said these actions means Google is "making millions from the victimisation of women".

Over the past few weeks, images of dozens of female celebrities such as Kate Upton, Jennifer Lawrence, Selena Gomez and more have been distributed online in the biggest celebrity hacking scandal ever.

Singer said his company, Lavely & Singer, sent a notice four weeks ago to remove the images - as well as other notices following that - but many images are still available on Google sites such as YouTube and BlogSpot. He did not state which celebrities he is representing. 

The letter from Singer was directed at Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, as well as chairman Eric Schmidt, saying they failed to "act expeditiously, and responsibly to remove the images".

Google responded to the lawsuit threat yesterday.

"We've removed tens of thousands of pictures - within hours of the requests being made - and we have closed hundreds of accounts," Google said in a statement, Reuters reported.

“The Internet is used for many good things.  Stealing people’s private photos is not one of them,” a Google spokesperson also told Deadline.

See the full letter from Lavely & Singer to Google here.

Image: Shutterstock