Pinterest, the latest hot startup in social media, has hired one of Google’s top lawyers to be its head of legal.

The social media site hired Michael Yang, Google’s former deputy general counsel, who served his last day with the search engine company Friday.

For those who aren’t familiar, Pinterest is a social media site mostly used by women that lets users “pin” pictures onto “pinboards” they have. The site has become very popular with users and investors and many see it as the next big startup.

Pinterest’s interest in Yang likely came from a looming threat the company could soon be facing. The issue is that many of the pictures posted Pinterest are copyrighted and do not have their owners’ approval to be pinned.


As Business Insider points out, the issues Pinterest faces with the use of copyrighted material have become so severe that it actually scared off one of its users who was a lawyer. She deleted her account because she was afraid she could even be sued for partaking in the site.

That’s what Yang will likely be dealing with. Yang’s track record at Google includes handling many of the company’s most controversial moments, including the fallout the company dealt with in 2010 when it released Buzz, Google’s first stab at social media, and published the names of contacts its users messaged most.

Yang’s next task will be making sure copyright issues don’t become the downfall of Pinterest.

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