With the web growing at an alarming rate, and pirated digital files along with it, Google have announced four new ways they are going to respond to copyright infringement and online piracy.

Speaking in a blog post, the search engine giant announced four new anti-piracy measures it will be taking in the coming months, likely in an attempt to appease network TV channels that are currently blocking its Google TV service. The new changes affect autocomplete, Ad Sense, copyright infringement requests, and how authorized content is promoted on the search engine.

The changes that Google are implementing include:-

• 24 hour takedown notice – Google will build tools for copyright owners and act on reliable copyright requests within 24 hours.
• Autocomplete will no longer fill in any search phrases that are closely associated with pirating and copyright infringement.
• Expel AdSense from any copyright infringing site. It is well known that piracy sites often use the adsense program to make money from their websites. Google will be more thorough in reviewing web pages for piracy before allowing ads to be served on them. Copyright holders will also be able to request that Ad Sense be removed from pages that are illegally serving copyrighted materials.
• Push legitimate sources of content higher up the search engines, whilst presumably pushing pirated content out of it! The improved search engine rankings will occur for just previews as well.

Could these changes have anything to do with the TV networks who have been blocking streaming from the Google TV platform? It has been rumored that the reason for the blocking is related to piracy.

With the recent takedown of movie and tv streaming sites by the feds, could this signal the end of unauthorised movie streaming sites?

Incoming TV searches:

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