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Google To Block Piracy-Related Terms From Autocomplete
An anonymous reader writes "Google is making changes in the way it presents web search results to try to exclude links that may be tied to pirated content. In a move enthusiastically praised by the RIAA, Google says it will not include terms closely associated with piracy from appearing via autocomplete. The company acknowledged that it can be hard to know what terms are being used to find infringing content, but 'we'll do our best to prevent Autocomplete from displaying the terms most frequently used for that purpose.'"
Of course, but they are just pulling it from auto-complete, not search. Now surprise considering that typing "Despicable Me" would magically have torrent behind it. This is just moving the hookers from the street to the alley.
lets see what will win. pagerank (tm) or freedom of information and knowledge.
Ooh, ooh, I can answer this one. Pagerank(tm). Easily.
It won't even affect it - It's only autocomplete, not the search itself.
Basically all this means is that the freeloaders (I prefer not to use the term pirate) will need to type 'torrent' manually instead of having it pop up magically. Big deal... given the lengths some of them go to already an extra eight keystrokes (including the space) isn't going to dissuade them one bit.
Google can't magically stop people using the terms outright as it would affect a lot of other searches as well. For instance, someone searching for a water torrent stock photo... Google isn't doing anything to affect that.
AltaVista didn't even have autocomplete, IIRC, and they've not said anything about it changing search results at all.
I like the way you think, but I see it a little differently.
Google: Okay, we've done as you asked and removed piracy-related terms from autocompletion.
RIAA + MPAA: Excellent!
RIAA + MPAA: What the ...? I typed "iron ma" and the only thing that came up was "iron magnets"? Where's "Iron Man" or "Iron Maiden"?
Google: Oh, those terms often came up in searches performed by pirates, so as you requested we removed them from autocompletion. In fact, we went even further and removed them from the search results entirely! Aren't you happy?
RIAA + MPAA: *fuming*
Filter out keywords. Do your search with: -buy -purchase -price -shop
It would be really nice if shopping sites could all be on .com and useful informational stuff could all be on non .com domains, but that's as likely to happen as unicorns flying out of my butt.