Google’s decision to completely deindex pirate sites from search results is spreading across Europe. Earlier this year the MPA admitted that around 10,000 domains had already been removed but today’s figure is likely to be much higher. Takedown notices on the Lumen Database and a report published in Lithuania cast additional light on a stealthy but massive piracy deindexing program.

Determined to reduce overall piracy, the UK government first asked and then threatened Google over pirate sites appearing in its search results.

A deal announced in 2017 revealed that Google would adjust its algorithms (pdf) to make pirate sites less easy to find.

While this ‘code of conduct’ didn’t feature whole site deindexing, the MPA and BPI celebrated the ‘landmark’ agreement. Interestingly, Google itself had very little to say. In 2021, when TorrentFreak discovered that whole site deindexing was already underway in the Netherlands, Google was no more talkative than four years earlier.

The rest of this article can be read on TorrentFreak.com

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