The Fappening Victims Suing Google Over Leaked Nude Photos

The Fappening drama continues, but this time there’s no new wave of leaked celebrity nude photos — now the hacked stars are fighting back, and they have Google in their crosshairs.

Famous targets of The Fappening nude photo hacking include Kaley Cuoco, Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Kim Kardashian, Gabrielle Union, Anna Kendrick, and dozens of other celebrities. Lawyers for some of the stars whose pictures were stolen have now decided to sue Google for its failure to scrub the photos from the web.

According to Page Six, the lawyers claim that Google is “making millions from the victimization of women,” so they’re demanding that the search engine pay $100 million in damages.

There’s no word on which celebrities were involved in this lawsuit, but a few victims of The Fappening have made it known that they were planning on taking some sort of legal action. According to TMZ, a spokesperson for Jennifer Lawrence released a statement saying that anyone who posts the actress’ nude photos will be prosecuted. Kate Upton’s lawyer issued a similar statement, and, as the Inquisitr previously reported, Gabrielle Union revealed that her legal team was contacting the FBI.

Marty Singer is one of the attorneys who is representing over a dozen of the celebrities affected by The Fappening, and he’s furious that Google failed to do anything about his clients’ nude photos being plastered all over the internet. Singer sent a notice to Google weeks ago asking the search engine to remove the photos, but they can still be found on the Google-owned websites YouTube and BlogSpot.

Singer believes that Google is doing nothing because it’s making money off of The Fappening. In a strongly-worded letter to Google’s founders and lawyers, Singer accused the company of allowing his clients to be violated.

“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 capitalize on this scandal rather than quash it.”

Google wouldn’t be the only website to rake in a large amount of revenue because of The Fappening. According to Wired, Reddit made enough money off of the leaked nude photos to power its servers for a month. Reddit is where “The Fappening” name originated from. It’s a portmanteau of “fap,” which is internet slang for “masturbate,” and the title of the M. Night Shyamalan movie The Happening. It was also the name of a subreddit where the nude photos were being shared. The subreddit eventually got banned, but not before Reddit enjoyed a huge surge in traffic and Redditors paying for Reddit “gold.”

Marty Singer didn’t just accuse Google of cashing in on The Fappening — he also took a really low blow at the company by comparing it to the NFL.

“Like the NFL, which turned a blind eye while its players assaulted and victimized women and children, Google has turned a blind eye while its sites repeatedly exploit and victimize these women.”

Do you think that the famous victims of The Fappening will win their lawsuit against Google if they decide to file it?

[Image credits: Airows, Getty via OK! Magazine, Times Union]