Google begins censoring all torrent-related searches

Earlier this week, Google began censoring any search queries with references to torrents from its 'instant search' and 'autocomplete' features.

Last month, the search giant promised it would begin "making copyright work better online" whilst blocking "terms that are closely associated with piracy" from autocomplete.

BitTorrent services have been up in arms since the move, pointing out that there are many legal torrents out there that are being censored, like films that have been released for free by directors and made available via torrent sites.

A couple of the banned search terms are "utorrent," "bittorrent," "rapidshare," and "megaupload." However, other cyberlockers like Fileserve and HotFile are not banned. Suprisingly, "The Pirate Bay," is still a searchable term.

Rapidshare expressed the concerns of companies now censored:

We knew about Google's plans for quite a few weeks now. We embrace that certain search suggestions will not put a wrong complexion on RapidShare anymore, but we are concerned that at the same time the legitimate interests of our users will also be affected.

Of course, regular search results will not be censored, just autocomplete and instant results.Permalink | Comments

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