Google search removed ‘view image’ button to stop people from stealing copyrighted images

Google has eliminated an important feature of Google search. Earlier, the “View Button “would conveniently send people directly to an image, bypassing the website on which the image displayed. That was a drawback for the website owners because people were not allowed to visit the specific website or its contents. Images used to be download easily, that was also a serious concern of the website owners.

Today we’re launching some changes on Google Images to help connect users and useful websites. This will include removing the View Image button. The Visit button remains, so users can see images in the context of the webpages they’re on.

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— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) February 15, 2018

How do you  stop image stealing?

To prevent image stealing, Google has removed View Image feature from the search which is really good news for publishers or website owners. It means that people will only be given the option to see the picture on the related web page, so that they can go through all the rules and policies of that image owner before using that image.

This new interface makes people unable to steal pictures as they directly wouldn’t be able to download or link to pictures without seeing whatever is there around them on a website page.

Does this feature removal change anything specifically?

Logically, nothing changes in Google Search’s ability to find images on the web. Still you can search for high quality, large-sized images but instead of opening them with a single click, the process takes a few more clicks.

Additionally, Google has also removed the “Search by image” button that appeared when you opened up a photo. This change is not quite as huge, however, you may still drag and drop any image from the search result page to the search field on top.

Google stated about these changes: “They are designed to strike a balance between serving user needs and publisher concerns, both stakeholders we value”.

At the end, it is really good to see Google protecting copyrights of photographers and other publishers. It is a legal change to stop images from being downloaded in the Google search directly.