Google Continues Silent Censorship

Google has blacklisted more words from its Autocomplete and Instant search services in an effort to curb online piracy, it has been reported.

According to a TorrentFreak report, Google began voluntarily blocking top file-sharing websites from the service in January 2011, and has been adding to it regularly ever since.

Stop lazy pirates

While not blocking the sites from appearing on the search engine altogether, this more subtle form of censorship prevents piracy related site names and search strings from appearing automatically when users begin typing them in the search bar.

This, according to the report, includes searches referring to popular torrent sites such as “thepiratebay,” “the pirate bay,” “isohunt,” “torrentreactor,” “btjunkie,” “kickasstorrents,” “sumotorrent,” “btmon,” “extratorrent” “Torrent”, “BitTorrent”, “RapidShare” and many others. Ironically, a simple search for “Pirate Bay” showed the desired result after typing the first two letters.

The Torrent Freak  report also notes that the updated list now includes several cyberlocker websites that were previously left unfiltered, such as “4shared,” “filesonic” and “fileserve.”

“While there is no silver bullet for infringement online, this measure is one of several that we have implemented to curb copyright infringement online,” Google spokesman Mistique Cano previously told TorrentFreak, adding that making some narrow and relatively easy changes to its Autocomplete algorithm, the company could play its part in reducing piracy.

According to IsoHunt owner, Gary Fung, this shows Google is going down a dangerous path, and although more subtle than the censorship in the PROTECT IP and SOPA bills, such things can lead to a Big Brother syndrome.

Despite critisism, Google has claimed that this filtering has reduced the quantity of searches for the filtered sites, and will continue this programme  along with the 500 tweaks it makes to its search algorithm annually, aw well as its ongoing efforts to reduce content farms and improve relevant search results.

Iris Cheerin

View Comments

  • Hahahaha!!
    If Google filters pages from content farms, Copyright owners can't find where the links to their properies are. So, Google is working in favour of piracy just shading the links. You and me know where to take the links from, Sony and Disney not.

    Surely chrome will evolve the same as instant search has done. Just wait until this.

Recent Posts

Australia Rejects Elon Musk Claim About Social Media Ban For Under-16s

Government minister flatly rejects Elon Musk's “unsurprising” allegation that Australian government seeks control of Internet…

1 hour ago

Northvolt Files For Bankruptcy Protection In US

Northvolt files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States, and CEO and co-founder…

3 hours ago

UK’s CMA Readies Cloud Sector “Behavioural” Remedies – Report

Targetting AWS, Microsoft? British competition regulator soon to announce “behavioural” remedies for cloud sector

18 hours ago

Former Policy Boss At X Nick Pickles, Joins Sam Altman Venture

Move to Elon Musk rival. Former senior executive at X joins Sam Altman's venture formerly…

21 hours ago

Bitcoin Rises Above $96,000 Amid Trump Optimism

Bitcoin price rises towards $100,000, amid investor optimism of friendlier US regulatory landscape under Donald…

22 hours ago

FTX Co-Founder Gary Wang Spared Prison

Judge Kaplan praises former FTX CTO Gary Wang for his co-operation against Sam Bankman-Fried during…

23 hours ago