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Google Censors "Piracy Terms" From Instant Search
Chaonici writes "A few weeks ago, Google promised that, on behalf of the entertainment industries, they would begin filtering 'piracy related' terms from their search system. Now, TorrentFreak reports that Google has lived up to their promise, and certain keywords (such as 'bittorrent' and 'rapidshare') will no longer produce results with the Autocomplete or Instant Search features. The standard search feature, however, continues to display results as normal. Simon Morris of BitTorrent Inc., RapidShare, and Jamie King (the founder of Vodo) are critical of the change, pointing out the many legitimate uses of popular file-sharing technology."
Great, now I need to find a new search engine... I thought Google was anti censor... and had a don't be evil policy...
The summary is misleading. This only refers to incomplete words. If you type "bitt" or "rapidsh" you won't get the (desired?) results, but if you type "bittorrent" or "rapidshare" you will get the results you expect.
Apart from that, it's quite childish. Also "pirate" gives me results leading to The Pirate Bay, for example.
Here's the secret to immortality:
This just means Google will not autofill "torrent" just as they don't autofill "breast".
- But that certainly hasn't stopped people from searching for porn, and won't stop them from searching for free music/TV shows either.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Back in the day, searching for illegal downloads using normal search terms didn't really yield any useful results. Instead, you had to add "z" to the end of everything ... for example "warez", "mp3z", "serialz", etc. And now "torrentz" I suppose. So I doubt that censoring copyright-infringement vernacular will have any impact whatsoever on legitimate uses of P2P software, especially considering that normal search terms will result in any number of legitimate MP3/video download sites. And for crying out loud, it's on the *instant* search, which has got to be the least useful feature I have ever seen in any search engine.
Just press like you used to! Jeez, they just don't want people in sensitive places getting potentially dodgy links coming up on their screens. I know when i'm at work I'd rather not have pirate sites coming up on my search result screen while I'm typing...
That's great, so now I just have to start my search with "torrent" or "arrrr" and I won't have to suffer through Google's rediculous "instant" crap? Sign me up!
In all seriousness; if you like Google just blacklist it for JavaScript, no more instant results. Or search from the address bar. Or, best option IMHO, use https://ixquick.com./ *
* google it for more details!
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
Given that filenames have taken a relatively standard form in torrent circles, the material can be found without specifying any more than the general name form.
Simply using: "[name of show] s##e##" will typically lead to torrent results without any other keywords. Usually occupying at least the top few listed results.
Fear is the mind killer.
If I'm looking for "Torrential Rains in [Country]" at work or at a public location, I dont' want google to offer me
"Free Torrents for your favourite shows" or whatever in the instant search results. If I truly AM looking for torrents, I can easily type in "Torrents" and press that magic button on top of the right shift.
BAM. Torrents.
Just if you're not activly looking for them, you won't stumble upon any. Is this so hard?
I'd say remove. They aren't censoring the search, they're just removing it from the autocomplete queue. Alarmist alarmism is alarming.
/in before the google hate?
I bet the Bittorent guys are F'ing pissed right now. It sucks that a great technology like Bittorrent immediately gets the spotlight on it's seedier uses as opposed to the really good ones (like legitimate releases of software that take the load off of individual servers).
And yes, if you want to know, I am not sure "pirates" are evil. A decade ago I was rather clearly against software, music and video "piracy". Not anymore.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
As others have noted, they're not filtering any results. They're just not suggesting piracy-related terms in the autocomplete, along with some other filtered terms like sex-related terms. Probably a prudent decision, because while returning search results for a query the user entered is fairly safe legally, prompting the user with something illegal that they didn't actively look for might be more questionable. Not sure if they could actually be liable, but it at least is less solid.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Besides "bittorrent", "rapidshare" and a couple of other, the following words are now also unable to auto-complete:
http://www.morewords.com/starts-with/bitt/
http://www.morewords.com/starts-with/rapid/
http://www.morewords.com/starts-with/torr/
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
They should also filter searches for other things that are used to facilitate copyright infringement...
FTP, IRC and HTTP - all have been used for downloading warez a lot longer than bittorrent or rapidshare.
Microsoft & Windows - the most popular platform both in terms of being copied, and in terms of being used by those that do the copying (far less linux users use warez, because there is far less software for linux that its even possibly to acquire this way).
Any form of commercially sold media - if everything were given away freely, there would be no "pirates"...
And dont forget anything to do with ships or seafaring, pirates need ships...
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
They're not censoring anything, they're just filtering the results of the annoying autocomplete, which I hate anyway. If someone is really looking for a linux torrent, they'll just have to click the damn button. The absolute legitimacy of torrents will not be denied in spite of this.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
there is no more polite way to say it. the entire country has become a whore bowing to every whim of a group of corporations. even the technically incorrect, capricious ones like these - thinking that censoring certain words will accomplish what they want.
even google now. no wonder they are producing stuff like american idol etc to keep the public sleeping.
Read radical news here
Just a few more in the list, and just as weak as their previous filtering attempts. Someone put up this site almost immediately when instant search came out http://www.2600.com/googleblacklist/ and it points quite a lot of funny examples or words that do or don't get filtered very inconsistently. Mind you, if you enter "bit" it shows bitcomet (a bittorrent client), doesn't filter out eMule and other non-torrent P2P programs, and for "thep" or "pir" the first result is thepiratebay. Doesn't filter out any other trackers that I know of either. For autocomplete it's no different, even better - shows an ad for thepiratebay on top of the suggestions and lists more torrent clients.
Clearly it's not an effective censorship/filtering of any sort, which leads me to wonder why exactly is it that way. I doubt Google programmers are stupid and would miss a lot of obvious things. What's more likely is that they aren't comfortable with this either and try to block as little as possible - just enough to satisfy managers and/or companies complaining.
I think Linux isn't better than Windows hence in the slashdot realm I'm a troll
When doing a search on some particular device, I get tons of results that point toward dealers selling crap or worse, links to ebay listings. I remember years ago when I search for something, i..e JVC 5000U, I get various articles (useful ones, not promotional junk) or webpages by individuals describing how they use or hack such items.
mfwright@batnet.com