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Google Now Censors The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, 4Shared and More

torrentfreak.com

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Re: Google Now Censors The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, 4Shared and More

#11

Post by ernesto99 »

ars wrote: post #5

Extremely inaccurate title, torrentfreak should be ashamed. The results are "censored" only from autocomplete, not from the index itself.

TorrentFreak here...

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.

Re: Google Now Censors The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, 4Shared and More

#13

Post by tzs »

I'd certainly like to see less pirated stuff in search results that aren't explicitly asking for it. Several times I've been trying to find reviews or discussion of relatively obscure math books, and the top several pages of search results have all been for pirated copies of the book.

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.

Re: Google Now Censors The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, 4Shared and More

#15

Post by dpkendal »

I don't see the problem. They're only blocking the terms from suggestions and requiring you to hit return to finish your search for these. As long as you can still get the same results, I'm happy.

This post should probably be retitled to "Google no longer suggests or instantly searches for..." or some variant.

Re: Google Now Censors The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, 4Shared and More

#16

Post by yanw »

ernesto99 wrote: post #11
ars wrote: post #5

Extremely inaccurate title, torrentfreak should be ashamed. The results are "censored" only from autocomplete, not from the index itself.

TorrentFreak here... 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…

Not all editorial action is "censorship", the sites in question are still indexed. And I think you are aware why they are doing it considering the pressure on them from politicians and harmful laws introduced all the time. The title is link-bait.

Re: Google Now Censors The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, 4Shared and More

#17

Post by jellicle »

Yeah, if you just start typing "isohunt " and watch the Instant suggestions, you can see what they mean. Try typing "youtube " or "yahoo " and Google knows just what you mean, right away. Isohunt? Not so much. Typing "torren" gives me suggestions for the Torrens system, apparently a system of land titles in Australia. Who knew? But I'm guessing the number of people who complete that word with a "t" rather than a "s" is in the ratio of tens of thousands to 1. Unless the Torrens system is a lot more popular than I think it is.

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.

Re: Google Now Censors The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, 4Shared and More

#18

Post by 1010011010 »

jellicle wrote: post #17

Yeah, if you just start typing "isohunt " and watch the Instant suggestions, you can see what they mean. Try typing "youtube " or "yahoo " and Google knows just what you mean, right away. Isohunt? Not so much. Typing "torren" gives me suggestions for the Torrens system, apparently a system of land titles in Australia. Who knew? But I'm guessing the number of people who complete that word with a "t" rather than a "s"…

Google gets sued by organizations all the time. They don't censor the results -- except when commanded to by law enforcement. They can't "compromise" with the police. And note that this filtering applies only to suggestions, not to actual results.

Google wants to make the internet free. Organizations like the RIAA/MPAA/BSA want it to be their own private AOL.

Re: Google Now Censors The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, 4Shared and More

#19

Post by yanw »

jellicle wrote: post #17

Yeah, if you just start typing "isohunt " and watch the Instant suggestions, you can see what they mean. Try typing "youtube " or "yahoo " and Google knows just what you mean, right away. Isohunt? Not so much. Typing "torren" gives me suggestions for the Torrens system, apparently a system of land titles in Australia. Who knew? But I'm guessing the number of people who complete that word with a "t" rather than a "s"…

Sigh. If this small gesture would appease those trying to ruin the internet with stupid copyright laws and delay their stupidity then why not? there is no harm there, the sites are indexed, this is by no means "censorship" and some lawyer could argue in court that with autocomplete Google is helping pirates or whatever. This is a non-issue.

Re: Google Now Censors The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, 4Shared and More

#20

Post by redthrowaway »

ricree wrote: post #8
redthrowaway wrote: post #2

Searching for "torrent" lists tpb as the first result for me, as does "tpb" and "thepiratebay". Similarly, "isohunt" returns the expected site, and isohunt.com ranks third for "iso". It doesn't seem to matter whether or not I'm logged in.

The search results themselves are unchanged, but the instant suggestions are. From a couple quick tests, this seems to be the case for me as well, though it would be easier to be sure if I had results from a year or so ago to compare against. 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 bittorre…

Well I don't see what the issue is, then. They do the same thing for porn or anything else that could be remotely offensive. I don't have a problem with that. They aren't blacklisting torrent sites; they're just not suggesting them.
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