Google Piracy Algorithm May Be Reviewed By UK Regulators

The Guardian reports that regulators within the United Kingdom will be reviewing Google’s efforts to remove piracy web sites from their search results because they feel Google has not done enough. In August, Google launched the Pirate Algorithm, which is designed to lower the ranking of sites that are repeatedly reported and found to have […]

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Piracy Cd Music FeaturedThe Guardian reports that regulators within the United Kingdom will be reviewing Google’s efforts to remove piracy web sites from their search results because they feel Google has not done enough.

In August, Google launched the Pirate Algorithm, which is designed to lower the ranking of sites that are repeatedly reported and found to have copyright infringement cases on the site. You can learn more on how that algorithm works over here.

UK regulators are not satisfied and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport said they will review the technical changes promised by Google in order to force Google to remove piracy from their search results. Jeremy Hunt, the former culture secretary privately threatened Google in September 2011 that he would introduce legislation to force it to take action against well-known pirate sites. But to this day, regulators are not happy with the results of the pirate algorithm.

A spokesman for Google said:

We continue to work closely with the industry to protect rights holders and their material. Sites with high numbers of removal notices are now more likely to appear lower in our results, we’ve made it easier to report pirated material and now take down more than seven million infringing links per month.

I do not see an actual date for when this will or may happen but it seems some folks in the UK are insistent in reviewing Google’s algorithms on this matter. If Google is willing to share is another story.

For more coverage on this, see Techmeme.

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About the author

Barry Schwartz
Staff
Barry Schwartz is a technologist and a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics.

In 2019, Barry was awarded the Outstanding Community Services Award from Search Engine Land, in 2018 he was awarded the US Search Awards the "US Search Personality Of The Year," you can learn more over here and in 2023 he was listed as a top 50 most influential PPCer by Marketing O'Clock.

Barry can be followed on X here and you can learn more about Barry Schwartz over here or on his personal site.

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