[governance] Google Lifts The Veil On Copyright Takedowns: Reveals Detailed Data On Who Requests Link Removals

Sat May 26 19:13:25 EDT 2012

Nice one from Google...

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120523/17520119054/google-lifts-veil-copyright-takedowns-reveals-detailed-data-who-requests-link-removals.shtml

  Google Lifts The Veil On Copyright Takedowns: Reveals Detailed Data On
  Who Requests Link Removals

      from the /data-data-data/ dept

As part of Google's ongoing Transparency Report 
<http://google.com/transparencyreport> efforts, today the company has 
released a whole new section on copyright takedowns 
<http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright>, 
containing a huge amount of information on the many takedown requests 
Google receives 
<http://googleblog.blogspot.ca/2012/05/transparency-for-copyright-removals-in.html>. 
It focuses specifically on the takedowns for /search/ links, but I 
wouldn't be surprised to see them add other areas later. As you may 
recall, we were among those who were victimized 
<http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120223/15102217856/key-techdirt-sopapipa-post-censored-bogus-dmca-takedown-notice.shtml> 
by a bogus takedown, and a key post about SOPA that we had written was 
missing from Google search for about a month.

The new transparency platform lets you dig in and see quite a few 
details about exactly /who/ 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? *Microsoft*, who has apparently 
taken down over *2.5 million URLs* 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.

<http://imgur.com/ca8BN>

There's also data on which sites are most frequently /targeted/, 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 
/percentage/ 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.
<http://imgur.com/fGWWb>

Perhaps more important, however, is that Google is also revealing the 
incredible /deluge/ 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 /over 250,000 such requests per week/ -- which 
is more than they got /in the entire year/ 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 
/per month/. 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.

It's also interesting to hear that these reviews catch some pretty 
flagrant bogus takedown requests:

    /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. /

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, but unfortunately at the moment there doesn't seem to be any 
way to actually /search/ the list. Hopefully that will change soon. 
*Update:* The search function is not currently advertised anywhere, but 
you can access it by using a URL: 
/http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/domains/*yourdomain.com*// 

<http://imgur.com/TdAvX>

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 Webmaster tools <http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools>, 
which will quickly inform you when one of your URLs are targeted by such 
a takedown, allowing you to easily file a counternotice.

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.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20120527/982f72b3/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: ca8BN.png
Type: image/png
Size: 127068 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20120527/982f72b3/attachment.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: fGWWb.png
Type: image/png
Size: 130844 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20120527/982f72b3/attachment-0001.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: TdAvX.png
Type: image/png
Size: 121213 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20120527/982f72b3/attachment-0002.png>
-------------- next part --------------
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.igcaucus.org
To be removed from the list, visit:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing

For all other list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t