14 DAY TRIAL // Google is reportedly working to promote more legal services for people who search piracy related keywords, much to the happiness of copyright holders around the world.
The company’s search engine has started to return a new Knowledge box at the top of the search results when people search for illegal content. Including words such as “torrent,” BitTorrent,” or even DVDrip will likely get you such a result
TorrentFreak reports that the results include links to Google Play, Netflix, Hulu and other video platforms. The feature seems to be under testing right now because it hasn’t been rolled out to everyone.
Since copyright owners, with the MPAA in the front line, have been complaining for years about how easy it is to find illegal content and legal alternatives didn’t turn up that high in search results, Google’s response is perfect.
The company is basically refusing to hijack their own search algorithm to bump legal alternatives to the top, while burying links to torrent sites further back. At the same time, it is offering the copyright owners a helping hand by integrating this card in certain search results. Just like any other card from Google, these ones pop out and are extremely easy to see, which means they probably have a higher impact than what the MPAA wants, namely for legal content to be on top of the search results pages.
It seems that the testing is mostly done on users in the United States and the United Kingdom, although not everyone can see the changes. Google has confirmed the new ads that are being tested, so it seems likely that the feature will roll out worldwide if the results are good.
“These ads will appear after various searches that include specific movie, TV, and music titles,” a Google spokesperson said.
When looking for a movie or a TV-show by title alone, you shouldn’t get the banners telling you just how much it would cost you to purchase a legal copy or to get a Netflix subscription.
TorrentFreak points out that searches for “Noah DVDrip” would immediately return the new addition, while looking for “Noah DVD,” “Noah rent” and “Noah buy” were free of the feature.
Perhaps the MPAA and other rights organizations will finally back off of Google since the company’s role isn’t to police the Internet, despite its great powers and reach. As always, perhaps the dollars used to help these associations’ bully and pressure companies into complying would be better used to provide some cheaper options for people to purchase.
