Google Removes Function To Thwart Thieving Of Pictures
Google has come up with a small, but impactful change to its image search feature. The company is getting rid of its “view image” button, which enables users to open the image by itself. This button was particularly useful for people who wanted to take and use it for their own purposes. If you want to save an image, there are more steps you have to go through to do so.
Google’s change is meant to be aggravating for users, as many publishers and photographers felt the image search option gave people the right to steal pictures. With the elimination of the view image button, Google is listening to these users.
Google made a deal last week to show photo copyright information and better its attribution of Getty photos. These changes were included in that deal.
The idea is to stop people from stealing images or direct them to a website where the image is, where it can serve ads and attain revenue. It will also let people see if there is any copyright information tied to that picture.
For publishers, this is great news, but in utter annoyance to others who want to find a picture. This means waiting for the website to load and scrolling through it for the image they want. Many websites have disabled the option to right click, making it hard for them to steal a photo or text they want.
However, there is a workaround for it. When you right-click, choose “open image in new tab” or “view image,” which opens the photo in full-size. It’s not as likely people will go through this option, as the “visit” site button is more prevalent and gets the most clicks.
Along with getting rid of the “view image” button, the company has eliminated its “search by image” button, which appeared when opening a photo. It’s still possible to carry out a reverse image search; you just have to drag the image to the search bar for Google to find related images of that picture. Google felt the button allowed people to find un-watermarked versions of pictures and took steps to eliminate it.
While it’s nice that Google is trying to protect photographers and bring traffic to websites, users are bound to be annoyed and frustrated with the company for the change. There are legit ways to use copyright images, and it’s only fair to ask people to properly give attribution to the photo’s owner. These changes are set up to stop people from stealing images in the first place.
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