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."

Comments

Applies only to incomplete words

[PARENA]

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.

Re:Applies only to incomplete words

[bughunter]

Yes, it only applies to autocomplete. But since this story hit the media a month ago, I've been watching how I use autocomplete, and learned something:

I use autocomplete to help me phrase my search terms, almost subconsciously. Any geek knows that phrasing a search is the key to getting proper results. I will frequently use the autocomplete to validate or invalidate several attempts at phrasing the search before I hit enter. Same goes for spelling. Autocomplete results in me creating more successful searches with more pertinent results.

Now, I seldom use this for porn because, 1) i use filestube as my porn search engine, and 2) I usually don't need help phrasing a search for "big butts." (And, I've noticed that Google autocomplete stopped working for pornstar names a long time ago, far earlier than their announcement in late 2010.)

But, for torrents, autocomplete is sometimes a valuable tool. No, I don't need it, but the responsiveness of autocomplete is an aid to the thought process of editing the search phrase. If they start extending their autocomplete bannination to other topics, I'd start getting concerned. Right now it's only the top of a slope which may or may not be slippery.

But "its just autocomplete" isn't a valid excuse, for several reasons. Google is making editorial decisions when they're relied upon to be a neutral, content-independent indexing service. It scares some people because, there's no easier and more effective way to censor something than to cripple its index entries. What's next?

Re:Bloody Hell

[RobbieThe1st]

Do notice that they -didn't censor anything! All they did is hide certain terms from the auto-complete. Big deal. There's plenty of other words in that "censored" list. Now, they can claim to be "helping prevent piracy" or whatever without actually doing anything. I see it as a win-win situation.

Re:Bloody Hell

[dkleinsc]

Yeah, my searches on "nine-pounder", "pieces of eight", "scurvy dogs", and "Arrrrrrr" all totally failed.

Get a grip!

[jareth-0205]

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...

Re:Bloody Hell

[mwvdlee]

Oddly enough, other piracy related search terms like "pegleg", "eyepatch" and "jolly roger" are still auto-completed.

Re:Bloody Hell

[HungryHobo]

"can i get pregnant from a dog" however is still autocompleted.
Seriously, I keep meaning to write some kind of program to itterate through all the possible autocomplete options to see all the wierd stuff which turns up.

there's already lots of things which aren't autocompleted.
it's no big deal.
as long as their search still works they can autocomplete what they like.