Google is set to remove images of minors from its search results, effective immediately. This change comes as a result of the company’s new policy on “child pornography.” According to Google, the removal of these images will help to reduce the amount of child pornography that is found on its search engine results pages. The company has also stated that it will continue to work with law enforcement in order to identify and remove any images that are considered child pornography.
“We believe this change will help give young people more control over their digital footprint and where their images can be found on Search,” Google said in a blog post.
The process to get an image removed seems easy enough. Google has a support link a minor or an authorized representative can go to and request the removal of an image. From there, they must fill out a form where they Image URLs of any images that they want to be removed, URLs of any search results pages that contain the images, and search query terms that surface the images. From there, Google will review the case and reach out if it has any questions.
If all of the requirements are met, Google will remove the image from Google search and inform the person who submitted the request that it has been removed.
Google reminds anyone that “It’s important to note that removing an image from Google results doesn’t remove it from the internet.” Instead, it’ll only remove the results from the search results. If you want to get an image removed completely, you’ll need to reach out to the website hosting the image.
