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Nice one from Google...<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120523/17520119054/google-lifts-veil-copyright-takedowns-reveals-detailed-data-who-requests-link-removals.shtml">http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120523/17520119054/google-lifts-veil-copyright-takedowns-reveals-detailed-data-who-requests-link-removals.shtml</a><br>
<h1>Google Lifts The Veil On Copyright Takedowns: Reveals Detailed
Data On Who Requests Link Removals</h1>
<h3>from the <i>data-data-data</i> dept</h3>
<p>As part of Google's ongoing <a
href="http://google.com/transparencyreport" target="_blank">Transparency
Report</a> efforts, today the company has released a whole new
section on <a
href="http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright"
target="_blank">copyright takedowns</a>, containing <a
href="http://googleblog.blogspot.ca/2012/05/transparency-for-copyright-removals-in.html"
target="_blank">a huge amount of information on the many
takedown requests Google receives</a>. It focuses specifically
on the takedowns for <i>search</i> links, but I wouldn't be
surprised to see them add other areas later. As you may recall, we
were among those who were <a
href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120223/15102217856/key-techdirt-sopapipa-post-censored-bogus-dmca-takedown-notice.shtml">victimized</a>
by a bogus takedown, and a key post about SOPA that we had written
was missing from Google search for about a month.
<br>
<br>
The new transparency platform lets you dig in and see quite a few
details about exactly <i>who</i> is issuing takedowns and what
they're removing from search. It's using data since last July
(when Google set up an organized web-form, so the data is
consistent). It may be a bit surprising, but at the top of the
list? <strong>Microsoft</strong>, who has apparently taken down
over <b>2.5 million URLs</b> from Google's search results. Most
of the the others in the top 10 aren't too surprising. There's NBC
Universal at number two. The RIAA at number three (representing
all its member companies). BPI at number five. Universal Music at
number seven. Sony Music at number eight. Warner Music doesn't
clock in until number 12.
</p>
<center>
<a href="http://imgur.com/ca8BN"><img
src="cid:part5.00060106.02090602@gmail.com" alt=""
title="Hosted by imgur.com" width="520"></a>
</center>
There's also data on which sites are most frequently <i>targeted</i>,
which (not surprisingly) lists out a bunch of torrent search sites
and file lockers and such. Don't be surprised to see some try to
claim that this is an accurate list of "rogue sites" that Google
should block entirely. However, if you look carefully at the data,
Google also highlights the <i>percentage</i> of pages on those
sites for which they've received takedowns, and the vast majority of
them are well below 1%. In other words, no one has complained about
well over 99% of the pages on these sites. It seems pretty drastic
to suggest that these sites are obviously nothing but evil, when so
many of their pages don't seem to receive any complaints at all.
<center>
<a href="http://imgur.com/fGWWb"><img
src="cid:part7.01070308.06030407@gmail.com" alt=""
title="Hosted by imgur.com" width="520"></a>
</center>
Perhaps more important, however, is that Google is also revealing
the incredible <i>deluge</i> of takedown requests it receives in
search, each of which it tries to check to make sure they're
legitimate. As it stands now, Google is processing <i>over 250,000
such requests per week</i> -- which is more than they got <i>in
the entire year</i> of 2009. For all of 2011, Google receive 3.3
million copyright takedowns for search... and here we are in just
May of 2012, and they're already processing over 1.2 million <i>per
month</i>. And while we've heard reports from the usual Google
haters that Google is slow to respond to takedowns, it says that its
average turnaround time last week was 11 hours. Think about that for
a second. It's reviewing each one of these takedowns, getting
250,000 per week... and can still process them in less than 12
hours. That's pretty impressive.
<br>
<br>
It's also interesting to hear that these reviews catch some pretty
flagrant bogus takedown requests:
<blockquote><i>
At the same time, we try to catch erroneous or abusive removal
requests. For example, we recently rejected two requests from an
organization representing a major entertainment company, asking
us to remove a search result that linked to a major newspaper’s
review of a TV show. The requests mistakenly claimed copyright
violations of the show, even though there was no infringing
content. We’ve also seen baseless copyright removal requests
being used for anticompetitive purposes, or to remove content
unfavorable to a particular person or company from our search
results.
</i></blockquote>
It's good to see Google catch these, as plenty of other sites would
automatically take such content down, just to avoid any question of
liability. Of course, it doesn't catch them all. Some get through --
as we ourselves discovered a few months ago. That led us to wonder
if this tool could drill down and find the details about takedowns
targeting Techdirt, <del>but unfortunately at the moment there
doesn't seem to be any way to actually <em>search</em> the list.
Hopefully that will change soon</del>. <strong>Update:</strong>
The search function is not currently advertised anywhere, but you
can access it by using a URL: <em><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/domains/">http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/domains/</a><strong>yourdomain.com</strong>/</em>
<center><a href="http://imgur.com/TdAvX"><img
src="cid:part9.06020208.03040805@gmail.com" alt=""
title="Hosted by imgur.com" width="520"></a></center>
Of course, this is also a good reminder -- as they note in the
Google blog post -- that if you run a website, you should absolutely
sign up to use Google's <a
href="http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools" target="_blank">Webmaster
tools</a>, which will quickly inform you when one of your URLs are
targeted by such a takedown, allowing you to easily file a
counternotice.
<br>
<br>
Either way, this is really fascinating data and an interesting
platform, shedding some significant light on just how often
copyright holders are trying to take links out of Google, who's
doing it and who they're targeting.
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