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Google To Start Punishing Pirate Sites In Search Results
An anonymous reader sends word of a change Google will be making to its search algorithms. Beginning next week, the company will penalize the search rankings of websites who are the target of many copyright infringement notices from rightsholders. Quoting The Verge:
"Google says the move is designed to 'help users find legitimate, quality sources of content more easily' — meaning that it's trying to direct people who search for movies, TV shows, and music to sites like Hulu and Spotify, not torrent sites or data lockers like the infamous MegaUpload. It's a clear concession to the movie and music industries, who have long complained that Google facilitates piracy — and Google needs to curry favor with media companies as it tries to build an ecosystem around Google Play. Google says it feels confident making the change because because its existing copyright infringement reporting system generates a massive amount of data about which sites are most frequently reported — the company received and processed over 4.3 million URL removal requests in the past 30 days alone, more than all of 2009 combined. Importantly, Google says the search tweaks will not remove sites from search results entirely, just rank them lower in listings."
I've recently started using iTunes for music and movie rentals and it works flawlessly. So there's no justification of "no good legal alternatives" anymore, as both Spotify and iTunes are actually easier and nicer to use than pirate sites. The same goes for Steam.
So no more YouTube search results in Google, then?
That: They have the movie you're looking for, you have a fast internet connect, you plan on watching it while you're on said connection, and you're not on a drop style connection where your neighbor's kid suddenly firing up bittorrent will kill the streaming on your movie.
..the end of google :P
This has "BAD IDEA" written all over it. Google is going to tweak their ranking based on how many URL removal notices it has received? I smell both a new skill being marketed by SEOs, a new strategy employed by scummy companies to up their ranking, and just a total nightmare for anyone trying to compete with the big content boys. Start making real inroads in content delivery? Get hit by automated takedown notices brought by more-or-less acknowledged affiliates of big content, and watch your Google ranking drop. Maybe this will signal the recurrence of search engines like dogpile.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
If a search engine abandon neutrality this way. Then why not avoid violent sites? porn sites? sites with bad spelling? sites that are not political correct? where is the line here?. You must have a line, that you will never cross, because some people will push you more and more.
-Woof woof woof!
Include "site:thepiratebay.se" or similar in your search query. You can even create a Firefox bookmark like this:
Give it a keyword (e.g., "tpb") and then when you type in the URL bar:
Firefox will search for "FOO" at thepiratebay.se. Problem solved.
Liberty in your lifetime
Amusingly, it might stick the pirates bay somewhere WAY down on the rankings, basically making it "unsearchable" directly. But, sites that link to the pirates bay and talk about how it's a wretched hive of scum and villainy will be riding right on top of the rankings.
if this is true I am sure Bing will see a rise in its user base for sure.
Or is anybody here naive enough to believe that nobody will want to fill the incredibly lucrative market which Google appears ready to abandon?
Google will also start punishing site owners who make false claims.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
Does this mean youtube won't show up in the results as often? I would suspect they are the worst offenders for takedown notices. This has poor planning written all over it.
Well, I guess Bing has a bright future now :p
Now that Google is dealing in "content" (movies/music), it makes sense that they'd want to push the "other" sites down or out. Not that I agree with this choice.
/tinfoil
It'll be interesting to see if Google Play's ranking in the search results start to "mysteriously" climb.
So, Google is finally tired of waiting for Bing to catch up (or they just feel so sorry for their miserable attempts at getting a market share) so they will try to screw up their own searches instead to give competitors a chance?
Google, how about you try to weed out the useless full of ads pages with fake/copy-pasted content that get top placements in the results instead of trying to be copyright police? With the search result quality decreasing dangerously the last few years, these kinds of algorithm tweaks are the wrong way.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
Errrrmmm...
So what is there to replace "Ossama Bin Laden" on my search prefixes?
I am sure that they have got used to me asking for Pirate copies of weather charts osama bin laden by mustafa now koran islamic North Atlantic terrrrrrsts.
So they'll punish pirate sites but how do we know that's it? Even if it is just pirate sites now, we can pretty much assume it'll be something else next.
Where are all those open source distributed search engines?
Anyone have a good list of them? Or a list of ones that collect together search results from multiple sources?
Now that Google is corrupt, their worth as anything is close to reaching 0. (they are still a source, which is why not 0)
Seems the Google dream is dying. It really was too good to be true.
Time to make my own e-mail server.
1) Form shell company
2) Have shell company send take down notices about my competitors website
3) Watch them vanish from the search results
4) Profit!
Take Hulu. They pollute global search rankings by pretending to host movies, then refuse to serve any content because you're not in the US. Google, in turn, pretends to serve results that are relevant to your location - and still give back tons of Hulu results regardless of where you are.
Dose sites, they are to be puuu-nished. Dey thinkin' dey so smarty and dey brains so big. Be gone with them!
Ooooh, you're so smart, Google. Now speed me on my way to DuckDuckGo!
Some of us have different needs than you do.
The time restriction on iTunes combined with the inability to share the movie
within a day or two are enough to keep me going to the brick-and-mortar
video rental store and avoiding iTunes.
I rent the movie at the brick and mortar store, then I rip it, then I can watch it
at my convenience instead of being forced to watch it within a time frame specified
by the twits at Apple.
iTunes leaves a LOT to be desired for those who have enough intelligence to consider
alternatives.
If I just search for the name of a song or something, chances are I -am- looking for a legitimate source like youtube. If I want a torrent, I'll just append "torrent" to the end of the search. Or, you know, search on a dedicated torrent-searching site instead of google, cause that often works better anyway.
Let's call it what it is. Google is accepting payment from big media, in the form of reduced media licensing costs, to rank big media sites higher. While still claiming to not accept payment for ranking.
...did "do no evil" changed to "do necessary evil"
and until how long before it's just plain "do evil"?
Google initially obliterated all competition and provided a truly awesome search engine. Personally, I have observed them getting worse since. Yes, some aspects have improved, but I think their direction is now clear enough to suggest that finally, after such failed attempts as Cuil, opportunity for competition is presenting itself again.
I remember before or around 2008, Youtube changed their search results and related-video function. Previously, Youtube was a rather amazing resource for discovering new things inadvertently. Then they fragmented and obstructed this previously excellent system and along with their web-results, went totally fucking stupid and began personalizing results based on IP addresses, which effectively slaughters objectivity in search results.
All signs indicate that it's time to move away from google. But of course, this is difficult -- if not impossible -- after placing such widespread large-scale reliance upon them. And call me troll all you'd like, but we really don't need to be assisting the NSA through google anyway. And yeah, they do have a partnership. And no, they don't delete any information at all. Someone once referred to google as the "Artificial Intelligence Manhattan Project", a thought at the very least worthy of believable fiction.
What I think we should consider, is building a p2p, torrent-based distributed internet. Censorship would have difficulty thriving and the fault tolerance should be pretty good. Challenging though. And I have no idea how the search would work. But with continued dependency on google, I expect the internet to get more exciting and flashy, but ultimately worse.
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
The most-targeted domains? filestube.com, downloads.nl, isohunt.com, and torrenthound.com.
Two search engines and two torrent sites that don't host any files?
Is that what the DMCA is supposed to be used for?
Isohunt has put up a post discussing the matter
What's missing on Google's DMCA notices report? Youtube. The by far largest video content website in the world ought to have very high volume of DMCA notices, if not the most, and it's inconspicuously missing from the list. To downrank and censor any website that's not Google's that receives a high number of DMCA notices? Sounds exactly like antitrust to me.
Despite his lack of proofreading, he manages to make several other valid points.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
It's been nice knowing you. Who's got the URL for the next search engine giant?
Authorities such as major companies and governments have adopted a new paternalism: They know what is best for you, and will do it without your consent and often with transparency.
Consider the greatly diminished respect for privacy (e.g., the tracking and monitoring by government and corporations alike), for end-user control (authorities decide what software you can install, whether and when it updates, what websites you can visit, what files you can store, etc.).
From Apple to government, they claim it provides a better user experience. Your computer works better, you are more secure, etc. And they don't reveal what they know or are doing.
As long as the user experience is good, no one seems to mind.
Here's the high points from the blog posting:
(1) It's going to be added to the list of over 200 signals, whic meands that if they were equally weighted and there were exactly 200 of them, you are talking about a 0.5% difference in ranking
(2) It may reduce where it appears in the results (read this as: it will not remove it from the results).
Google dropping something from search results because of some editorial policy would make them legally liable when something bad gets through anyway (check out the disclaimers on the "safe search" setting). And given the general bent, they are doubly unlikely to do anything simply to make RIAA/MPAA happier about what's generally acknowledged to be an obsolete business model.
The logical destination is evil. Just ask Anakin.
Google can either stay agnostic, or will become just as bad as the rest and will be tossed aside at some point in the not to distant future.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Social policies implemented with technology. They haven't learned, and continue to refuse to.
The blowback from this will probably be the eventual destruction of Google itself.
I am John Hurt.
not torrent sites or data lockers like the famous MegaUpload
There, fixed that for you.
I'd be really happy to use Hulu or get the same content on Netflix as US users but due to an artificial restriction I am unable to. I don't want to have to pay for a proxy or VPN I want to get the same content that is available to US users (and Canadians?). I speak the same language and I have money. Feel free to offer me a product and you can have some of that money.
So if a site is bad, It won't come up on the search results.
Which also - Hides it away from the Media dicks searches - They never see it anymore and think it's gone!
Brilliant.
If Google starts doing this then maybe I can start being the cool kid on the block again, knowing all the "obscure" websites from which people can get their fix from.
On a more serious note, Google has made it too easy to find stuff. remember the good old days where you'd have to sniff out dozens of hyperlinks before you found what you were looking for?
Unfortunately Google is censoring once again. This does not come as such a suprise to myself looking at their recent history of algorythm changes and vieo takedown censorship. http://onlyinamericablogging.blogspot.com/2012/02/youtubes-censorship-of-free-speech.html http://coffeelovingskeptic.com/?p=1279
SOPA didnt pass, why not go straight to the largest search provider instread. Time to find an alternative search engine. The GOOD news is this is a great opportunity to itroduce a new uncorrupted search engine. The BAD news is Google and Microsoft can buy out any search technology that comes about.
Google still does search ? I had forgotten.
Now I will have trouble finding Youtube! They have so many complaints about pirated material. Help! ;-)
What I really wonder is why they are abandoning the idea of giving searchers what they want.
They were really good at that for a while, you know--it's what helped them get their current status.
Oh well, there's always Duck Duck Go.
expandfairuse.org
Sony crippled a lot of its products when it became a media company too. Google is now selling movies and TV shows on Google Play. I hope this isn't a concession to the entertainment industry to get more content/better licensing deals on Google Play. Hollywood still (incorrectly) blames Google search for a lot of its piracy. I suspect that's why it took a long time for Google to get enough media content to add that to the Google Market (no Google Play) at first.
I also wonder if this is one of the reasons Apple has decided to avoid competing with Google in search. They don't want to piss off Hollywood which would make licensing to iTunes more difficult.
"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it"
If people want that info, they will not use Google to find it. If Google wants these people to search through them, they will change their way.
Off course ... Google has always participated in the filter bubble, so this seems part of that
change because because its existing
This is great news if you are selling media. However Google search should just be search. If I don't want pirate sites in my results, I'll tailor my query to do so. This is just continued commercialization of the web.
I've been using YubNub for years so I can switch on the fly between engines, as users have added virtually every site I might encounter and I can add more as needed.
Now mostly at Usenet:comp.misc & SoylentNews.org (it's made of people!)
Google now working to conceal pirated content from authorities* searching for it!
*and other people.
Oh great. SEO has always been a magnet for black hat web spammers. But that was always, always traceable back to the black hat site in question. Call it "defensive SEO". But now? The actions of unknown third parties can trash a sites ratings -- offensive SEO. And how long will it be before botnet for hire offers to destroy your competitors in way which is essentially impossible to trace. Because SEO is absolutely that petty and specific. The opportunity to harm a competitors Google rating is, for many, too good to pass up.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck I do not want to have to deal with that.
Why should I care?
Orwell rolls around in his grave....Google becomes a copyright cop. I wonder what "wink wink" deal this was tacked onto with the studios.
Real men don't need signitures!!!
Why is it news when a business decides to hitch its future on the failing business model of the entertainment industry? If Google's search results become nothing more than obvious product placements, they're going to go the way of Lycos.
To start punishing Google in my internet usage habits. If Google wants to censor, then they are no longer the best search engine for my needs.
Great Intellect...
You know there are other alternatives. Goog totally tramples your privacy and now this censorship bullshit.
Just say no.
Thanks for applying your ethics cough I mean advertising revenue strategy to distort the state of the web that should normally be reflected by search results and autocomplete.
And Fuck You Google. Google was becoming part of my brain. Now you are intentionally distorting my thought processes!
Is it not conceivable that you could allow the user (me, not you) decide how he wants search results presented?
Except that the copyright industry has made sure their terms apply to ALL content. Play ANY music no matter how it is licensed and the copyright industry collects payment for it. You cannot escape it legally and forcing them to return illegal collections or actually paying out illegal collections to copyright owners that are long dead or do not want the money is impossible.
If you created your own music and played it on your own radio show, you would have to pay for your own music and then have a hell of time trying to collect the money due to you minus a hefty fee if you ever get it.
Only a serf would claim copyright is fair.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The problem is that Google is not the law, has no formal role in law enforcement and cannot take any decisions on infringement other than when they have been confirmed.
This means that unless Google is linked to all court decisions in all countries it will be acting as judge and jury - and on top of that is taking a precog approach to the future.
Even if multiple offences have been registered, this could be due to the sheer size of the organisation and guess who would immediately get a hit downwards? Youtube.
Now, let me think, who owns that again. Hmmm...
Insert
Do we get a search modifier / term for that? So we can find sites that have get high numbers of these notices?
:)
You know, for, uhr, research purposes?
When the deletion request is valid, the site is removed anyway. Thus google would delist them, because of 404.
When google punishes them, this means they have only requests up to then, without knowing if they are valid or not.
When I search something using your engine, I expect to find what I am searching for, not what YOU want me to search for. Got it?
If I search for say 'Johnny Hollows Stone Throwers' feel free to make some of the results to places to buy it. I'm sure they already do, probably in the ads I've blocked. But anyway, sure, weight the search results in favour of some store that sells whatever record that's on, or whatever. I'm fine with that.
I'll just search for 'Johnny Hollows Stone Throwers torrent' if I wish to download it. And if you fuck with those search results, well... then you're not a very good search engine any more, because then you are ignoring what I'm searching for and showing me what you want me to search for instead... And then I go elsewhere.
Here's an idea: what's preventing us from writing a Firefox plugin that auto-indexes all sites that we visit (except when in privacy mode -- or perhaps only when in a new discovery mode?)? This local index will then be shared with other machines running the same plugin and virtually combined into a big global index. Since there's no site that won't be one day visited with such a search-enabled browser, the index will likely cover most of the Internet. This way, we get rid of Google and other centralized search engines; and therefore get rid of corporate censorship.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
The time for Google to put its money where its mouth is has done come and gone for sure. Google has benefited so greatly from openness amd swore to do no evil. The cartel spoke, though, and they listened. What a shame. The y really had a chance to make a difference.
Google, you just lost an Adsense customer. Been planning to do that anyway.
Linking this to big media is so easy, it's automatic.
But many times when I did search for some piece of media, I would get nothing but torrent links on the first or even second page, where in reality I was looking for any interesting sites that would talk about the plot of a movie I didn't quite "get". They do have a point in that torrent sites preempt everything else in many situations, and they have an interest in protecting the main functionality of their site, which is finding people relevant info.
when i google "watch bad movie", the first five pages are sites that don't even have the movie.
LOL it's just another reason to continue using DuckDuckGo as my primary search engine.
anybody who is serious about finding content online (e.g. usenet & bt users) doesn't need Google - they either know where to look or someone from their favorite filesharing circle pointed the way.
Finally we are able to SEARCH & FIND en masse quickly and efficiently and... we have to impose discontrols. ??? People like me like to have the full data available, not preselections, then choose. Last thing we want is censorship in the search engine. Though I think I know why in the search engine... :(
Quoting a couple of lines from the article:
"... and Google needs to curry favor with media companies as it tries to build an ecosystem around Google Play."
-- This is the bottom line. Google sits in the position of trying to please billions of people with their service while also pleasing business partners and shareholders. In the end, love won't pay the rent and they're going to do what they money people tell them to do.
"Only copyright holders know if something is authorized, and only courts can decide if a copyright has been infringed; Google cannot determine whether a particular webpage does or does not violate copyright law."
--This is interesting when viewed through the US ideology of "innocent until proven guilty". It seems that Google is making decisions, whether right or wrong, based up on the argument of one party in a multi-party dispute. They're putting themselves in the position of judge and jury and most decidedly leaning on the side of the prosecutor.
Somebody on /. mentioned the possibility of creating a shell company to crank out infringement notices against a competitor and this seems like an unfortunate probability, given this type of emerging environment.