MUMBAI: Cecilia Barnes spells Rs $ 3 million for search engine giant Yahoo Inc, and how? Oregon-based Barnes has sued the company for that amount for failing to remove nude photos of her from the profile of her former boyfriend.

Barnes, 48, has claimed in the lawsuit that her former boyfriend began posting naked pictures of her in Yahoo! profiles. Also included were her personal mail ids along with phone numbers. The photos were taken and posted on the net without her consent

"Due to these profiles and online chats, unknown men would arrive without warning at the plaintiff's work station expecting to engage in sexual relations with her," the lawsuit claims.

According to media reports, Barnes had informed the company of these activities in January asking them to take action against her former boyfriend, though she failed to receive any feedback from the company. More attempts to get these images removed from the Internet failed in the following months leading to this lawsuit.

The important bit however is the fact that she did receive a verbal communication from Yahoo! director of communications Mary Osako, who promised that the images would be removed from the online profile database. Laws in United States, however, protect the online companies from lawsuits pertaining to information that is published by third parties.

Early this month, the internet was abuzz with stories concerning the $10 million lawsuit filed on 9 May against Yahoo!, which charges that co-defendant Mark Bates and others were allowed to share child pornography on a site provided by the Yahoo! Groups service. A site called Candyman allegedly was created by Bates using Yahoo! resources to share child porn.