Google Now Censors The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, 4Shared and More
torrentfreak.com
torrentfreak.com
Google are not preventing people reaching tpb results.
They are declining to actively push these results unbidden upon people.
The massive, fundamental difference between these two things should be obvious.
Do we really think it's unreasonable for google to decline to actively point it's users towards largely illegal material which they had not explicitly requested?
Google is a publicly traded, for-profit corporation. They have every right to do whatever the hell they want, within law, to make their business as successful as possible. If you don't like it, go use DuckDuckGo, or start your own engine. There's a public domain page index available now, have at it.
Just so you know, the lame arguments you are making are not new or novel. Throughout history, all episodes of censorship have been met with the response that the material isn't REALLY censored, not for sufficiently determined readers. Douglas Adams provided the definitive mocking of that idea:
>`But look you found the notice didn't you?' >`Yes,' said Arthur, `yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of The Leopard".'
Just because it's not 100% effective - Arthur did find the notice, after all - doesn't mean it's not censorship. The word has never meant that. Google is attempting to make this material less available to people who want to get it, and is succeeding. 100% effectiveness is not part of the definition, and never has been.
Throughout history, all episodes of censorship
have been met with the response that the
material isn't REALLY censored
Of course, smart governments that yield control in subtle ways, like the US government, have been using tactics like disinformation to hide the truth in a mountain of noise and I can see how Google could do the same thing. However this is not censorship.
The reason why I'm asking for a citation is that I live in an ex-Communist country. I know how censorship looks like and it ain't nothing like what you describe.
Otherwise I ask you to cite support for your assertion
that "a material is either forbidden or not forbidden"
Related to that event, over a period of 15 years more than 130 journalists and Internet users have been jailed, including Internet webmaster Huang Qi that has been in jail since 3 June 2000 for having allowed articles about the Tiananmen Square massacre to be posted on his website, which was hosted in the United States after being initially banned in China.
I'd like to point out we have courts deciding
whether laws apply and whether something is forbidden
or isn't covered by a specific law.
So yes, thanks for pointing out the obvious - content is either forbidden or not forbidden.
I think the key word here is Suppression which doesn't have to be as extreme as in your example. Censorship is not a binary thing, it's on a scale. Simply using tactics to discourage something can be considered suppression in my view.
However, I also believe that the liberty of the press has to go both ways. A company should be free to deny the publishing of something, after all you can just start your own newspaper, or your own web engine that indexes content in this case, or whatever. It's not like your life is threatened, you just have to move your ass off your couch.
What? In this discussion people said that Google is censoring information about torrents; but no-one has said "use a different search engine" because Google will return results about torrents, they just don't return the results using Google Instant.
"torrents" is just eight characters; even for a hunt'n'peck typist that's a few seconds before they hit [search].
As to the affect this has upon actual visits to the sites in question, only they can say.
"Having to press enter after typing your query" doesn't really count as descending into the black market in my eyes.
When google starts actually blocking tpb from its results across the board, rest assured that I'll be right there next to you, molotov in hand.
Type into search field: baldur's gate torren
Response: Showing results for baldur's gate torrent
You were saying? Looks fine to me.
Also, don't call the guy's argument lame, just answer it. Be civil.
There's a balance between being afraid of your own shadow and being reasonably careful/safe. Think about that.
You used the words "reasonably careful/safe", which I assume means you're not subscribing to an extremist position. Similarly, I don't hold an extremist position on this and am simply highlighting that there are grey areas that Google has to deal with. If it were easy, they'd have made an obvious decision years ago and wouldn't need to change it.
Similarly, the argument to legalise drugs. Personally, I agree with the argument, but a similar demand-supply problem exists in human trafficking (e.g. child sex slavery), but there I think the laws should continue to keep the latter illegal even while it supports the high profits that human traffickers can make. What do you think?
In general I dont think that consumption of child pornography is much of a crime, the harm has been done by then, and some poor sad git masturbating over a 3 year old isn't going to make it any worse.
Personally I would rather they put significant resources into catching those people who create it, than into changing search engines and blocking dns addresses so that everyone can pretend it doesn't exist.
Given the threat our lawmakers believe piracy poses to content-producers, and that they wish to suppress the production of child porn, perhaps they should actually encourage the piracy of child porn...
(I jest, of course, but the law itself is none too rational here.)
I am unsure what problem you actually believe is being solved by google?
What google appears to be doing now is attempting to pretend that neither supply nor demand exist at all.
The insanity of that must be fairly obvious?
From my perspective, if those of us arguing for things like shorter copyright terms are to have any success convincing the broader public (whose access to information is largely through the media conglomerates), maybe having those people accidentally stumble upon torrent sites when they search for their favorite movie or pop idol is a good thing.
Not because we want them to pirate the content, but because we want them to know that technology provides another way -- that there is a conceivable, technically possible existence that doesn't depend on a controlled feed of entertainment from the existing media players. If only they could experience the digital utopia that could be created if not for the impossibility of negotiating licenses, they might be willing to support a reform of copyright that is in the best long-term interests of society as a whole, both creators and customers.
Google has built its business on other people's content, is that simple. But then it started to gradually "steal" more and more of said people work, until it became the giant corporation that you mention.
And before people start down-voting me, just imagine a giant like IBM (let's say) building a search engine that steals other people's content (because that's what things like Google Places have become) and then making tons of money on the back of it. Hell will break loose.
I don't understand how it's related to this particular issue though.
Because when it first started I think there was a mutual, non-spoken agreement between web content-owners and Google, sort of "I give you our content for free to use it on your search engine and you bring me back visitors by trying to be impartial in your SERPs; but I don't expect you to compete against me, not now, not ever".
That didn't last long, to say the least, but said content owners are now prisoners of Google (yes, it's a big word, but that's the fact). If my personal experience counts, I let Googlebot crawl my website like crazy, at speed rates for which I would certainly ban any other potential search engine bots, and that's because Google brings in 98% of my search engine traffic. And I'm sure I'm not the only one banning strange-looking bots, which could belong to potential new, wonderful search engines, but which at this rate will never see the light of day.
And, unfortunately, things like DuckDuckGo are sub-optimal outside of the English sphere of influence, at least that's what I could see in my case.
The inequities of crawling are in my opinion a huge issue with the web that receives relatively little discussion.
If a majority of websites were to ban Googlebot, Google would be brought to its knees. Slowly.
Their index would go stale.
I like Google. But I do think crawling, who gets to do it and who does not is an underappreciated issue. Google is very lucky.
But anyway, this isnt really relevant. Can you tie it in for us?
Impossible to block Google? Probably true. But only because they have been allowed to grow so large as to be indefeasible. And the reason they've been able to do that is because of what the commenter said: websites allowed them to crawl, fast and hard, year after year. This is not true for all bots.
I'm not sure how this is relevant to the article and the specific issue. I don't disgree with what Google is doing in this case. And I understand why and where Google is headed.
The issue of who is allowed to crawl and who is not is something the commenter raised. It's a huge issue that people take for granted, in my opinion.
Not that these things weren't true when the corporations started, but as they scale, so does the influence and responsbaility.
It reminds me of the old Cyberpunk 2020 rpg book where corporations have they own law, police, etc.
To keep the discussion going, how would you feel if in the future, Google removed the "offending" sites from it's index entirely?
For torrent sites I think I'd be pissed. I'm no fan of piracy and I'm not an apologist for those sites at all but I don't think it's Google's place to do that. Google's mission is to index and organize the world's information and blacklisting websites like that would be hypocrisy. Even if we all agreed it was okay for one site it becomes a slippery slope where Google can use that for their own or their partners' benefit. There'd be an exodus and Google would slowly lose market share from that point on.
It's one thing to stop making it so easy to find a site that you barely have to type 2 letters before you get what you want. Its an entirely different thing to limit access to certain sites. If its not on Google then it doesn't exist on the Internet for all intents and purposes. We're back to emailing each other links in that case.
This should be as far as Google reaches on this short of banning these sites. From there it's the job of users to stop supporting piracy and law enforcement to shut down illegal sites in their own jurisdictions using the current laws and without creating new laws to prosecute people unless it's absolutely positively necessary.
It isn't a hard stretch to imagine in the future, you need to turn safeSearch off to see them in search results. Sometime further in the future you'll need to add some other preference or something to see them. Then, you'll need to be logged in and have a "verified" account. Then....
I think it's safe to say Google are well and truly on the slope of slipperiness.
Like he said, the results are still there, just not the autocomplete. And stealing content? Where? A music service isn't a radical new idea and I'm sure they could have just as easily done it whether they stole content or not.
This is a for profit company. There's money to be made and I really don't see anything unethical about their new Music service. You want to talk about stealing?! Let's talk about the sites moaning about Google not autocompleting queries that are likely looking for pirated material. Now those sites are stealing. The disgusting thing about them is that they want to hide behind "freedom" and "censorship" as a way to distract or even excuse what they do.
I'm just shocked at how many people feel theyre entitled to free music, movies, software, you name it! You're not entitled to shit. I often wonder how many of those same people are in business for themselves. I'd venture to guess not many at all.
Make no mistake here, censorship, SOPA, Protect IP are all bad things. But websites that obviously, actively, and often openly break copyright laws cannot be taken seriously when we talk about freedom and censorship. It's like the KKK hiding behind the bible to support bigotry or politicians hiding behind Patriotism to pass the Patriot Act. By using those things as shields you're essentially shitting on the very thing you say you value so much.
Copyright laws have been on the books since before the web and while there's a point to be made about some parts of those laws going too far, the simple concepts of creators being able to defend themselves against the unauthorized distribution (theft) of their creations is something we should all be able to get behind. If we can't then I had better get out of the programming business because sooner or later my own colleagues will be diving for the freedom to be able to hijack and give away what I create for any price they want without any permission from me.
However, while copyright itself is an economically and morally valid concept, the current copyright law is not.
It's simply not OK for copyright protections to last for 100 years (and growing, as long as Disney is still around), when something like 10 years should be enough. It's also not OK to sue parents for singing Happy Birthday to their child in a 20 secs YouTube video. I also don't think it's OK to sue anybody for singing a song, unless he does it for commercial purposes. It's also not OK to demand tens of thousands of dollars for a single song you downloaded illegally. Or to sue children or grandmas.
Another problem is that sharing is in human nature. If you can't find a way around that (like putting a tax in every Internet connection that should take care of any illegal song or movie downloads) than it's also unjust to punish people for doing something which is in their nature (it's like punishing people for having sex).
It's not that copyright is unjust. The concept is OK, the authors need to live too. But they went way too far (and not for the benefit of the authors ;))
Why include the word "BitTorrent" as it's the trademark of a fine US tech company?
Why include ALL variations of searches with the dictionary word "torrent"?
These decisions appear to be quite arbitrary, which is dangerous when we're talking about censorship.
The real solution would be to solve the piracy problem and have the BitTorrent protocol go back to being widely used for its intended purpose. It wasnr intended as a piracy tool, it was intended to be an efficient, decentralized file sharing tool like p2p networks. If those protocols were being used to share the newest office memo in the company network or just non piracy related files in general then there'd be no need to the restriction and it's unintended consequences and we could revert the autocomplete policy.
It's the rule breakers that made it this way and that's where your frustration should be directed. But I'll admit that's pretty hard these days. I'm only 25 and I'm the exception but the rest of my generation and younger seem to think piracy is fine and have this sense of entitlement about it. That needs to stop.
It's pretty clear this isn't arbitrary just like the Rollerblade example I gave before. Typical users often think you have to type in a URL into the search engine. They never use the address bar! They get from site to site using a 3 step process. 1) Go to search engine of choice. 2 Type in desired URL 3) Click the first result. Those people are the reason the filter is so broad, but in the end it's the pirates who created the need for a filter to begin with.
It's not "censorship" as TorrentFreak wants to linkbait. All results are still indexed, even sites that are obviously piracy related.
All Google is trying to do is cover their asses when it comes to contributory infringement.
If they were ever sued search engines are USUALLY safe. The exception being when sites actively push users towards pirated content - as we've seen through cases such as the isoHunt case where having a "Top Torrents" list that had mainly studio IP condemned them to heavy losses.
I think the last thing anyone wants is Google to lose a copyright infringement case. The precedent would be the gold standard against search engines and would be enough to start knocking out indexers and torrent sites all over the place.
If they see cause to do a bold move such as this to protect themselves, I say all the more to them.
The results are "censored" only from autocomplete, not from the index itself.
They do censor these words right?
The title is correct but we can't always include all nuances. We hope most of our readers will take the time to at least read three sentences :)
I considered " Google Now Censors The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, 4Shared and More From Their Autocomplete and Instant Services Until A User Types In The Complete Term" but that seemed a bit too much.
But yeah, I'm very ashamed.
"Google no longer autocompletes The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, 4Shared and More".
Or.
"Google no longer suggests The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, 4Shared and More in search bar".
The funny thing is most of those don't even actually work. The sights are often just directories linking to the alleged downloads and the links are bad.
For example, "the pirate ba" returns "the pirate balthasar", "the pirate bar", and "the pirate bar" in several different cities. Amusingly, "bittor" doesn't complete to bittorrent, but does include at least one "piracy" related term. It also has a torrent client as its top result.
Spelling suggestions don't seem effected for now. "bitorent" suggests "bittorrent". "thepirtebay" shows results for "thepiratebay".
If Google decided to censor your business would you be happy about it?
The millions of porn webmasters out there don't seem to be complaining too loudly. They're just as legal.
For now they'll let you find whatever you want, legal or not. They just won't give you any extra help along the way. I mean, even without the bells and whistles like autocomplete, spelling corrections, +1 suggestions, etc. you can still very easily find anything on Google without much effort.
It isn't Google's job to punish illegal activity but they have every right to take away the extra helpful tools that basically shove it in your face. In fact, why would Google even want to censor sites that contain illegal material? Forget the outrage about censorship for a moment. I think law enforcement would want "bad apple" sites in Googles index so they can be easily found and their owners prosecuted.
"Google’s blacklist prevents the names of sites appearing in their Instant and Autocomplete search services, while the pages themselves remain indexed."
This post should probably be retitled to "Google no longer suggests or instantly searches for..." or some variant.
I know Google is the easy target for RIAA/MPAA and their politician allies lately, but Google really doesn't have to "give in" at all here. At least not until a law like SOPA gets passed. But until the ink is dry on a passed law like that, Google doesn't have to do any concessions.
The only reason I could see them doing this anyway is by trying to appease the content industry when making content deals with them for their own services, but for Google's sake, I hope they won't be going that road, because there won't be any turning back. They will just ask for more and more censorship in future deals. They just need to tell them that's absolutely off the table in negotiations, and not even agree to start the negotiations before they acknowledge that.
The key is that it is not written into law.
I specifically do not have a problem with this. However, each 'moral' step Google makes takes it nearer to dancing and wanting to be the conscience of the web. One day Google might go SOPA and decide to stop linking to sites that America decides support terrorism.
I am afraid of when US embargos will mean country domains will stop being indexed. It is dangerous the way Google is so powerful that they can determine the success of other sites.
In the words of PG "I worry, I worry". Not for now, but the future.
It makes sense though. What.CD is a tacit community, much less known about than any of the more "mainstream" file-sharing networks mentioned in this article. I wonder if Google is consciously just leaving it alone because reckons it can afford to. This move is no doubt a PR move and a legal precaution (understandably). It's just funny how they've been selective against the public networks.
[1] http://superuser.com/questions/276069/google-chrome-automati...
I sell a shareware app. Google has been helpfully suggesting the suffixes 'crack' and 'keygen' for years. Today it isn't - wonder if it's related to the original topic or if it's just a blip.
All Google is doing is saying they don't want sites like this to be found quicker or stumbled upon using search helpers like auto-complete. If they want to make it so you need to explicitly hunt down sites which make copyrighted material easily accessible to be download then what is the problem?
Oh, Google. Do we have to fight about every little thing?
Here's what's best for users and arguably, best for Google in the long run:
"Google search tries to find what the user wants to find"
Here's what best for Google in the short run:
"Google search tries to find what is most profitable for Google, Inc."
I'm pretty sure you want to do the first one, not the second one, to maximize the long-term advantage to your company. Companies that intentionally make their product shittier do not actually do well in the long run. None of them. And frankly, trying to "compromise" with the RIAA/MPAA/etc. is foolish. They're paid to push toward a position which is untenable for Google. No matter how much you compromise, they'll be back next year with a further demand. In the end the RIAA/MPAA do not want to co-exist with you; they want the internet to consist of two buttons, one labeled "Buy Music" and one labeled "Buy Movies". So in the end you can't satisfy them. Why try? Nobody at the MPAA will thank you for this.
Google wants to make the internet free. Organizations like the RIAA/MPAA/BSA want it to be their own private AOL.
If you search for 'torren' and probably any movie, song, game, book, or program, Google will probably divine your intent and give you the results for related torrents.
IMHO, if you can't manage a better query than just 'torren', you are probably a moron and don't deserve access to any torrents.