Google Deletes Pirate Bay's Homepage From Search Results
Thanks to a DMCA complaint filed with Google, the company's search index now doesn't feature the Pirate Bay's homepage anymore and the Pirate Bay's PageRank has been dropped to zero. Now, when users search for 'Pirate Bay,' a link to the DMCA complaint and a notice that explains that a number of search results were removed from the page appears at the bottom of the page. Interestingly, though, the Pirate Bay hasn't fully disappeared from the search results and a link to piratebay.org/browse still appears on the first page.
Update: According to Google, "the removal appears to be an internal error and not part of a DMCA request."
According to Chilling Effects, a clearinghouse for DMCA takedown notices, the complaint was apparently sent by an adult entertainment company, Gwen Media's Destined Enterprises, which has filed similar complaints with Google before. According to TorrentFreak, the complaint was sent by RemoveYourContent, a company that specializes in sending out DMCA complaints for the adult entertainment industry.
For the time being, the effect of this takedown notice is that PirateBay.com, a scam site that really shouldn't appear in Google's index, now sits at the top of the search results.
It's important to note, though, that this is far from the first time that Google has deleted search results after receiving takedown notices. To the best of our knowledge, however, this is the first time a well-known site like the Pirate Bay has been affected by this.
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While I am certainly no fan of scam sites this is a very slippery slope. Who decides what sites are valid and which simply disappear? What if your ecommerce site or business was to vanish from the index? Google is currently providing 60-80% of the traffic to most sites. Few businesses would survive a 60-80% drop in business. Could yours?
Sadly, even Google must follow the law. Before people trot out the usual trope that Google has long betrayed "Don't be evil," keep in mind that Google isn't some extragovernmental entity..
It is still indexing the torrents though.
A search for 'piratebay linux iso' leads directly to the pages within the pirate bay
my google search still showing pirate bay results http://imgur.com/WVpiY
I think the way it works with dmca is: if you own the content you can send take down notices. ISP needs to comply if it wants to keep the legal protections against lawsuits. But if you make a mistake and take down CNN.com, then they can sue whoever sent the takedown notice for all the damages and some more and it may turn ugly :)
Is Pirates Bay still legitimate? er... Illegitimate?
I thought after all of the troubles they had recently they ended up being bought by some company to turn into "not a torrent/piracy site".
It's google's responsibility to verify all submitals FYI
Piratebay.org is still the #1 result on the Google search you linked to for me.
It also still lists the extra breakdown links to Browse Torrents, TV Shows, Movies, Music, etc
http://cli.gs/JMu80t - screengrab
That said, the Pirate Bay website appears to be down for me (Time Out Error). Is this an organised take down?
Well its sooner or later, isn't it?
I think I'm with Internet Strategist on this one, as in, "The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen." If we're to trust GOOG search results, then they shouldn't be censorable. (Higher showing in presentation order shouldn't be purchasable, either: off topic.)
Pirate Bay returns as the first result on Google for me.
Was first for me and the site still seems to be working ok too :)
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Google is now saying that the URL was accidentally removed from the Google search index, and it has now been re-inserted. Breaking news on CNET: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10366570-93.html
Yes it's back in google.... an accident..
Govcom.org fully documented the apparent removal of 911truth.org from Google results for the query "9/11" September-October 2007.
http://issuedramaturg.issuecrawler.net/issuedramaturg_story/911truth.org.html