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Google Adds 'Kodi' to Autocomplete Piracy Filter

torrentfreak.com

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Re: Google Adds 'Kodi' to Autocomplete Piracy Filter

#3

Post by Skunkleton »

This is standard operating procedure for Google, and presumably all other major search engines. They apply the same filtering to other "objectionable" content and are the sole arbitrators of what fits this definition. How is this news? Is there some other way to solve the very real problem that Google is addressing?

Re: Google Adds 'Kodi' to Autocomplete Piracy Filter

#4

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

>Google has banned the term “Kodi” from its autocomplete feature, meaning those who look for information on the set-top box will have to type out the full term in order to search, as reported by TorrentFreak.

>While Kodi is a legal set-top box for streaming, it supports a myriad of third-party add-ons that provide access to pirated media.

Kodi is not a "set-top box". Kodi is software. A set-top box might be pre-loaded with Kodi, but it is not Kodi, anymore than a phone is an "Android". As far as I'm aware, the Kodi team doesn't even sell or officially endorse any pre-loaded hardware set-top box.

This sort of mangling is disappointing from a tech-focused news outlet like The Verge. It also reinforces the implicit association between Kodi and piracy, which is the very thing that caused Google to remove Kodi from search results in the first place.

Re: Google Adds 'Kodi' to Autocomplete Piracy Filter

#6

Post by Rebelgecko »

Skunkleton wrote: post #3

This is standard operating procedure for Google, and presumably all other major search engines. They apply the same filtering to other "objectionable" content and are the sole arbitrators of what fits this definition. How is this news? Is there some other way to solve the very real problem that Google is addressing?

Is there a list of software that search engines won't autocomplete? Bing and DDG gave useful autocompletes when I searched for Kodi, XBMC (still works in Google too), bittorrent, DeCSS, popcorntime, etc.

Re: Google Adds 'Kodi' to Autocomplete Piracy Filter

#8

Post by eco »

I feel so bad for the Kodi project. They've done amazing work over the years and their reputation is being destroyed so quickly by people taking their open source work, adding a bunch of piracy addons, and selling a set top box.

I have no idea what they can do to combat this. I don't see how they can distance themselves from this any more than they have.

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