Search engine giant Google has received several requests to remove more than 100 million links since January 2013. Google has been asked to remove links for web pages which are said to be in breach of copyright laws. The number is almost the double of what the company has received for the entire 2012.
This move is also a sign that publishers are taking intense steps to battle against internet piracy. Every week, copyright holders send millions of ‘takedown’ requests to the search engine, in order to make pirated material more difficult to access online. On the other hand, critics say that the approach is wrong.
Mark Mulligan, technology analyst said, “As soon as you take down one page another pops up in its place. It’s like playing Whac-A-Mole.” Mulligan went on to say that this happened as file sharing has become very decentralized and that there is no central server that one can shut down. Reports say that many of the takedown requests which are made under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act are generated by third parties.
The search engine has began publishing such requests in its Transparency Report in 2012 and since then, the number has increased sharply.
Photo Credits: USA Today
