Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Google Removes 'Kodi' From Search Autocomplete In Anti-Piracy Effort (torrentfreak.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the anti-piracy dept.

Google has banned the term "Kodi" from the autocomplete feature of its search engine because it's "closely associated with copyright infringement." This means that the popular software and related suggestions won't appear unless users type out the full term. TorrentFreak reports: It turns out that Google has recently removed the term "Kodi" from its autocomplete results. While Kodi can be abused through pirate add-ons, the media player software itself is perfectly legal, which makes it an odd decision. Users who type in "Kod" get a list of suggestions including "Kodak" and "Kodiak," but not the much more popular search term Kodi. Similarly, when typing "addons for k" Google suggests addons for Kokotime and Krypton 17.6. While the latter is a Kodi version, the name of the media player itself doesn't come up as a suggestion. Once users type the full Kodi term and add a space, plenty of suggestions suddenly appear, which is similar to other banned terms. Ironically enough, the Kokotime app is frequently used by pirates as well. Also, the names of all of the pirate Kodi addons we checked still show up fine in the autosuggest feature. Unfortunately, Google doesn't document its autocomplete removal decisions, nor does it publish the full list of banned words. However, the search engine confirms that Kodi's piracy stigma is to blame here. In a statement to TorrentFreak, a Google spokesperson said: "Since 2011, we have been filtering certain terms closely associated with copyright infringement from Google Autocomplete. This action is consistent with that long-standing strategy."

5 of 117 comments (clear)

  1. Re:whew by Highdude702 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I love how everybody wants the major corporations to police the internet now.

  2. The Humanity by rmdingler · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There has to be a whole other level just north of 1st world problem to properly convey the angst and suffering experienced by the user forced to enter the full four letters to link to the Kodi site.

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

    1. Re:The Humanity by Rockoon · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Google went back into China. That tells you where Googles limit is w.r.t bending for governments. No limit at all.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
  3. Kodi has nothing to do with piracy. Google is PEDO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    This action is so dumb I'm honestly not surprised it came from America. What is the point of attacking Kodi, a media player, for the contents some people use it for? It's like attacking iTunes or Winamp because some people use it to listen to "illegally" downloaded music.

    Google is str8 up PEDO and needs to be replaced by a neutral entity that is in no way linked to American government or associated with America's lackeys in Europe and such.

  4. Will this happen to all generic media player apps? by ZorinLynx · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Because you can use VLC, MPlayer, IINA, Plex and more to watch pirated content, ya know.

    It seems odd that Google would single out Kodi. I do wonder how long until the software industry starts making it hard for us to play back arbitrary DRM-free video files.