Google to Begin Punishing "Pirate" Sites

Via TorrentFreak:

Google announced [Friday] that it will lower the search engine rankings of websites that receive a high number of DMCA takedown requests, independent of whether the linked content is lawful or not. The algorithm change is the result of extensive lobbying efforts by Hollywood and the major music labels, and could severely degrade the rankings of websites such as The Pirate Bay, FilesTube, and even YouTube.

For years entertainment industry groups have lobbied search engines to penalize sites that link to a high number of copyrighted files, and today Google has given in to their demands.

The search engine will soon ["starting next week"] take into consideration the number of DMCA takedown notices it receives against sites to determine the ranking of those websites in its search results.

Read the full article here.