Google caves to entertainment industry, begins censoring certain terms - Polidicks

[url=http://torrentfreak.com/google-starts-censoring-bittorrent-rapidshare-and-more-110126/]Source[/url] [b]Note: This is not total censorship. You can still search for these terms (so far), but they will not return autocomplete or instant search results.[/b] [quote]It’s taken a while, but Google has finally caved in to pressure from the entertainment industries including the MPAA and RIAA. The search engine now actively censors terms including BitTorrent, torrent, utorrent, RapidShare and Megaupload from its instant and autocomplete services. The reactions from affected companies and services are not mild, with BitTorrent Inc., RapidShare and Vodo all speaking out against this act of commercial censorship. ... Among the list of forbidden keywords are “uTorrent”, a hugely popular piece of entirely legal software and “BitTorrent”, a file transfer protocol and the name of San Fransisco based company BitTorrent Inc. As of today, these keywords will no longer be suggested by Google when you type in the first letter, nor will they show up in Google Instant. [b][highlight]All combinations of the word “torrent” are also completely banned. This means that “Ubuntu torrent” will not be suggested as a user types in Ubuntu, and the same happens to every other combination ending in the word torrent.[/b][/highlight] This of course includes the titles of popular films and music albums, which is the purpose of Google’s banlist.[/quote] Understandably, lots of people are pissed: [quote]In addition, all the names of popular torrent sites including The Pirate Bay are not included in Google’s banlist either. BitTorrent’s Simon Morris agrees that this is odd, to say the least. “There’s no reason for Google to throttle search results for our trademarks, including BitTorrent, µTorrent and torrent. Indeed, they do still enable autocomplete for many third-party clients that use the BitTorrent protocol, including BitComet, BitLord, and even sites like The Pirate Bay and Isohunt.” [b][highlight]Morris further points out that the inclusion of Xunlei is a little hypocritical since Google is one of the investors in the Chinese BitTorrent client.[/b][/highlight][/quote] Opinions? Google seems to be a supporter of a free and open internet, so this comes as a rather surprising move. Perhaps they should change their slogan to "Only do a little evil".

Google's policy: "Don't be evil." Yeah, right :rolleyes:

I say we all use Bing until they grow some balls.

This is clearly the most important and the BEST way to stop piracy. Boxes from people who either don't get my sarcasm or take this really seriously and think it actually is a great way to stop piracy.

I still love Google. I accept them as our overlords

Must be for the greater good.

That's stupid.

now's a good time to get a life outside the computer i guess

The creator of bittorrent and every other program that ends in torrent needs to sue.

Yahoo here I come!

Big deal, whenever I want some Linux distros I have to manually type "orrent". Seriously, it's more bother to complain than it is to actually deal with I agree though that it sucks for creators of torrent programs and legal torrents. This is pretty much pointless, it just helps google show that they don't support piracy, which they are totally entitled to do anyway.

assuming i actually have looked up such websites one might think bookmarking was a good idea so the repeated use of searching wasn't needed.

what the fuck, you can't google "uTorrent"? ohh, that's totally going to stop people from downloading 100% legal software

I'm sure they realize it won't actually do any good to stop piracy or anything but I guess they think it will help get some of the pressure off their back which is understandable.

[QUOTE=lil_n00blett;27684421]what the fuck, you can't google "uTorrent"? ohh, that's totally going to stop people from downloading 100% legal software[/QUOTE] Read. You can still google "uTorrent". You just cant type "ut" and exect google to fill out the "orrent" for you.

[quote]Note: This is not total censorship. You can still search for these terms (so far), but they will not return autocomplete or instant search results.[/quote] Oh I hate that shit anyway. It's not that big of a deal.

So starts the fall of online freedom. :911: :downs: 800 posts

snip

No matter how much you guys want it to be piracy is not okay.

[QUOTE=ketchup;27684544]No matter how much you guys want it to be piracy is not okay.[/QUOTE] I call bullshit.

[QUOTE=ketchup;27684544]No matter how much you guys want it to be piracy is not okay.[/QUOTE] This isn't about piracy, this is about Google deciding on the results we see. They have also blocked Rapidshare from the instant search.

this violates freedom of speech(?)...I think...some sort of law I'd imagine...I may be wrong.

They have done this for years with various terms (type "por" into any google search bar that does auto complete. Are you really telling me all those words are more popular searches than "porn"?), no real surprise they have started doing it with torrent related words. Doesn't stop it being dumb though. [editline]27th January 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=nemmises5;27684614]this violates freedom of speech(?)...I think...some sort of law I'd imagine...I may be wrong.[/QUOTE] No it doesn't. Why would you even think that? They are not preventing you from saying anything. Not to mention this is the internet.

[QUOTE=nemmises5;27684614]this violates freedom of speech(?)...I think...some sort of law I'd imagine...I may be wrong.[/QUOTE] Google is a private corporation that mainly acts as a hub from which people can reach intended information. If they want to block specific searches, they have all the legal rights to do so.

[QUOTE=ketchup;27684544]No matter how much you guys want it to be piracy is not okay.[/QUOTE] You're the first person to mention piracy in this thread outside of the article

OK, I was just a bit unsure....none the less this is still wrong

[QUOTE=Kontradaz;27684651]Google is a private corporation that mainly acts as a hub from which people can reach intended information. If they want to block specific searches, they have all the legal rights to do so.[/QUOTE] And in some situations are legally required to. I am sure everyone has come across a google search which ends up with "x results have been removed as the result of a DMCA" or something being shown.

As a test I just checked to see what happened if I searched the terms "torrent", and "demonoid", and "utorrent" in and out of context. Well, here on the Northwest there is no immediately obvious filtering.

[QUOTE=Kontradaz;27684651]Google is a private corporation[/QUOTE] From Wikipedia [quote]Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation[/quote] hmm

What's wrong with this? Are you guys all pirates or something?