Google to Block Piracy-Related Terms from Auto-complete !!
If you were hoping Google would help you save precious seconds in your search for “Sex and the City 2 torrent,” prepare to have your hopes dashed. The search giant is cracking down on piracy in a few ways, including blocking piracy-related terms from autocomplete.
Google has blacklisted a few terms in its time, including “naughty words” and terms like “lesbian.” But this new measure goes beyond protecting children from hate speech and pornography.
Google General Counsel Kent Walker wrote today on the company blog that Google is instituting a new set of actions to help prevent copyright infringement.
In addition to providing more and better access to legally distributed content, such as YouTube clips from a movie posted by the studio itself, Google is also taking some anti-piracy measures. The company says they’ll improve the process for DMCA takedown requests, beginning with Blogger and Search content and eventually including all Google products. For responsible submitters, Google will act on requests within 24 hours. The company says they’re also trying to improve “counter-notice” procedures for people who believe their content was wrongfully removed from the web.
Google is also cracking down on sites that display copyright-infringing material while using AdSense.
Finally, the search company will start blocking certain terms in autocomplete. As walker wrote, “While it’s hard to know for sure when search terms are being used to find infringing content, we’ll do our best to prevent autocomplete from displaying the terms most frequently used for that purpose.”
That means that, like “lesbian,” “torrent” will soon be shifted to Google’s naughty list because more people use that term to search for illegal or inappropriate content than for legitimate, legal content.
The past couple years in particular have been a turbulent one for file-sharing and piracy. With Homeland Security seizing websites, the Pirate Bay getting slammed by a crippling lawsuit and even end users getting sued by the recording industry, voices like Richard Stallman’s are resonating more and more with the averageInternet user. To many of us, these anti-piracy actions seem like an ad hoc, punitive solution to a systemic problem: The recording and film industries are still learning how to come to terms with — and make money from — the Internet.
Its going to be a setback for Google! not for the users!
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