Google has announced tweaks to downgrade the position of links to piracy websites in its results. But the way it is doing so is still upsetting legitimate content providers.
The changes, already dubbed the “Pirate update” in the search industry in reference to the previous “Panda” update, cover three tactics to try to make results for movie, music and other media-related searches more weighted towards authorized distribution.
The first is a revision of an existing policy by which websites that are the subject of a large number of legitimate copyright takedown demands (under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act) will be penalised in rankings. Google says the revision will “visibly affect the rankings of some of the most notorious sites.”
The second change is that Google has revised its autocomplete database so that people are less likely to see suggestions for terms where the results feature sites with a high level of copyright takedowns. As a hypothetical example, somebody who types in “Watch New Marv…” might now get the suggestion “Watch New Marvel Movie” but not “Watch New Marvel Movie Free” or “Watch New Marvel Movie Torrent.”
It’s the third change that’s prompted a mixed response. Google is using new advertising formats that are triggered by media-related searched with terms such as “download,” “free,” or “watch.” These ads will only be available to companies offering legitimate streaming or downloads of the relevant material and will appear as both sponsored results (at the top of the list) and in boxes to the right of the results list.
While this certainly seems to achieve its goal, both highlighting the legal options and making illegal options less prominent, the idea that Google’s efforts to combat piracy involve legitimate providers giving it more money isn’t going down too well. For example, the BPI (the UK’s equivalent to the RIAA) says it has a list of all authorized music distributors in the country and argues that these services should automatically qualify for the prominent ranking spots without the need to pay.