Google announced the total number of pirated links it has removed from its search results has gone past the 6 billion mark. This marks a significant number in itself and is also reflective of the company’s strong intentions in combating piracy. As ArsTechnica reported, the present effort can be considered to date back to 2018 when it first introduced a pre-emptive block list which includes the list of sites that infringed copyright laws. As Torrent Freak revealed, some 326,575 copyright holders reported having issues with 4,041,845 domain names which they claimed to infringe on their copyrights since 2012.

However, Google has not been known to be too proactive when it comes to containing piracy right from the start. Rather, the company has often been accused of being lackadaisical with its anti-piracy efforts when things started back in 1998. That was the year when the Federal Communications Commission allowed companies like Google the legal shield it needed to protect itself from copyright infringement claims when it comes to third-party content. The only caveat was that Google is required to reveal all information on those who are regarded to infringe on copyright claims.

However, the Mountain View company was pulled up again in 2009 for not working earnestly in containing online piracy. The publishers even accused the company of making a profit from ads placed next to links that have infringed on the copyrights of others. Google responded by publishing its first transparency report in 2010 while also making it easier for publishers to flag those content that they considered to infringe on their copyright. However, the transparency report was still far from being exhaustive as it only included links that the government had requested for removal.

Google further ramped up its anti-piracy efforts by coming up with a new report with enhanced scope in that it offered a lot more information on takedown requests. That included “information about who sends us copyright removal notices, how often, on behalf of which copyright owners and for which websites.”

Lumen, the company Google partners with in dealing with all the takedown requests that it receives revealed to Ars that the majority of the takedown requests that it receives comes from academics. More recently, such requests have also been coming from media and non-government organizations though policymakers come last on that list. Lumen also revealed Google to be the only company that submits the most information compared to all other companies it partners with. That includes the likes of Twitter, Wikipedia, Redditt, and so on.

Meanwhile, Lumen project manager, Adam Holland stated it has started collaborating with the European Union with the aim of proper enforcement of new transparency requirements by the service providers as mandated by the recently adopted Digital Services Act.

The post Google has removed 6 billion links from its search results for copyright infringement first appeared on Good e-Reader.