Posted: 03rd Dec, 2010 By: MarkJ
Google, the world's biggest Internet search and online advertising giant, has finally caved in to pressure from
Rights Holders. The firm has announced a series of new measures that should remove, at least in part, the popular words (e.g. "
warez", "
torrent" etc.) and links associated with internet copyright infringement .
Google's General Counsel, Kent Walker, said:
"As the web has grown, we have seen a growing number of issues relating to infringing content. We respond expeditiously to requests to remove such content from our services, and have been improving our procedures over time. But as the web grows, and the number of requests grows with it, we are working to develop new ways to better address the underlying problem."
Google's Four Changes:
• We’ll act on reliable copyright takedown requests within 24 hours.
• We will prevent terms that are closely associated with piracy from appearing in Autocomplete.
• We will improve our AdSense anti-piracy review [to prevent its use on websites that provide infringing material].
• We will experiment to make authorised preview content more readily accessible in search results.
However Google admits that it can be "
hard to know for sure when search terms are being used to find infringing content". Rights Holders are also unlikely to be happy with how the new word filter only affects
Autocomplete and not Google's wider database of sites.
A British Phonographic Industry (BPI) Statement to the BBC said:
"It is encouraging that Google is beginning to respond to our calls to act more responsibly with regard to illegal content. However, this package of measures, while welcome, still ignores the heart of the problem - that Google search overwhelmingly directs consumers looking for music and other digital entertainment to illegal sites."
Google has also pledged to improve its "
counter-notice" tools for those who believe their content / website / webpage was wrongly removed and enable public searching of takedown requests.
Measures like this could ultimately prove to be more effective than penalising broadband ISPs in the UK with an unworkable system through the controversial
Digital Economy Act 2010 (DEA).