Google has become a hotbed for taking down roughly any link in last few years. In Europe there’s a push to have “irrelevant” information about people removed resulting in hundreds of thousands of requests. The company also sees a ton of requests to remove illicit links from its search.
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In its weekly transparency report, Google details that some 345 million links have been requested for removable by copyright holders. In the past month alone that number was almost 37 million from a little over 4,700 copyright holders. Also listed in the report are the top reporting agencies and copyright holders with music industry entity BPI appearing in both lists.
So what to make of the numbers? More directly it’s multiple industries protecting their copyrights and attacking piracy. The larger picture points to something similar to—or related to—the motion picture industry’s Project Goliath, a multiple prong assault on Google’s perceived accumulation of power.
Details about Project Goliath were leaked back in December following the massive cyber attack on Sony Pictures, a significant participant in Project Goliath’s planning.