Google plans to censor unauthorised nude photos from its influential internet search engine in a policy change aimed at cracking down on a malicious practice known as revenge porn.

The new rules will allow people whose naked pictures have been posted on a website without their permission to ask Google to prevent links to the image from appearing in its search results.

The monitoring of these images will work in the same way the site deals with other sorts of highly sensitive personal information such as bank account numbers and Social Security numbers.

Google's Senior Vice President Amit Singhal admits while the change won't solve the problem of revenge porn, he hopes that honouring people’s requests to remove offending images from Google search results may help in a bid to battle the issue.

"Our philosophy has always been that Search should reflect the whole web." Singhal said. "Revenge porn images are intensely personal and emotionally damaging, and serve only to degrade the victims—predominantly women."

A form for submitting the censorship requests to Google should be available within the next few weeks.