This is wrong. Google should aim to provide the best possible result for the search. If that is an copyrighted videostream on a non-authorized site (e.g. a stream of all of the episodes of the series i'm googling for), this should be exactly the first result. And not a lame but authorized preview of 30 seconds.
Already found myself using duckduckgo in such cases, imagining the results were better.
I think your proposed policy is very short-sighted.
More than ever, thanks to the Internet and ideas like social networking and search engines, independent artists of whatever genre can compete directly with the industry behemoths on merit. These are exactly the kind of people copyright is supposed to help. This is the very essence of promoting the creation and distribution of new works!
If massive industry players like Google are permitted to turn a blind eye to the side effects of their vast resources and almost monopolistic influence, while at the same time making staggering amounts of money helping many people to infringe copyright, then all this does is squash the little guys. It gives all the power back to the industry giants who are big enough to throw their weight around anyway. You know, the ones who have been price gouging for decades and pushing DRM and hiring whole departments to issue takedown notices to anything that vaguely resembles a title of a song they once sold and funding organisations that threaten to sue just about anyone in one of the most flagrant violations of any justice system in recent memory?
Frankly, I think Google have been incredibly lucky that the arm's length/safe harbour philosophy has held up so strongly so far in the global legal landscape. Given that the very thing that makes them so potentially damaging to legal rightsholders is their scale, and they make vast sums of money because of that scale, it would not have been unreasonable to go down a different path and impose more of a burden on them in terms of preventing abuse of their systems to break the law.
If they voluntarily take reasonable steps in that direction anyway, it sends the right message about corporate social responsibility. That alone is worth orders of magnitude more to them than the eyeballs of seventeen people who are going to go use Duck Duck Go for their searches instead. But it also supports the people who actually created the works you apparently enjoy enough to search for them but not enough to pay for them, which is ultimately good for everyone except freeloaders, since it promotes creation of more work, which more people can then search for on Google, and more people can then enjoy.
You are assuming that having takedown notices does not correlate with a lack of quality. I don't have any inside information about this change in particular, but I'd guess that is a bad assumption. I'd bet that indeed, this signal is useful to predict search quality on some set of traffic, and that's why Google is using it.
There tends to be a high bar to meet to push out search quality changes at Google.
Does this mean Google will never surface YouTube in its search results? That is probably the largest and most known source of copyright infringing material
There are a lot of interesting signals for web spam and poor web content. I don't know if this one is very good. In particular I see this scenario:
1) Google algorithmically genreates take down notices on youtube, they move this over to search results.
2) Algorithms 'err on the side of caution' with regard to fair use.
3) Every page that quotes or excerpts a copyrighted work gets flagged.
4) So Google 'manually' makes exceptions for sites they strongly believe won't engage in poor behavior (NY Times, Techcrunch, whatever)
5) No new web site that reviews products or provides critical analysis ever makes it to Google's front page.
That might be a stretch, the auto-flag stuff on YouTube is out of control, and then trying to use that as a signal in results is just inviting abuse. Black hat SEOs are malicious enough without dealing with 'Copyright joejobs'
[ Full disclosure: I work at a search engine blekko.com ]
This has nothing to do with search quality. This is just Google bowing down to big copyright. They have done it before with the autocomplete feature, censoring many suggested terms.
It seems Google has cushioned this in sweet words, as to not make it blatantly obvious.
These sites were very high on the rankings because people click them (and rarely return to search further). Google simply aligned its search results with peoples needs.
Google is enabling media companies in their delusions, when they could be destroying them. They might end up as a casualty.
I wonder what the secondary incentive effects of this will be. I see three possibilities:
1. Encourage copyright owners to send more takedowns to Google Search, since those takedowns will be "more powerful".
2. Encourage targeted sites to send more counter-notifications since a Google Search takedown has an effect on an entire site's ranking, not just a particular link.
3. Encourage shared sites (hosting providers, etc.) to shut down particular users or areas that get a lot of Google Search takedowns, to stop the spillover effect on the rest of the site.
I don't know which of these effects will matter the most, but I suspect at least one of them will be behind a significant unexpected consequence of this change.
Speaking of deteriorating Google search results, my latest peeve is when a search shows dozens of results from the same domain. There used to be the much more sensible "show more results from this domain" link. I have a hard time imagining why Google thinks the new way is better, my guess is some designers wanted to remove the link because they thought it was "cleaner".
More signs that designers, lawyers and MBAs are moving to the fore forcing engineers out of the way at Google Search.
It's a decent site, but most of the pages are barely relevant. I was searching multiple viewpoints that might explain why I would prefer one model of a scanner over another, and getting page after page from the same single source is much worse than the previous behaviour.
If I'm searching on a programming problem, and google thinks the best two answers are both on stackoverflow, why shouldn't it show them both?
There needs to be a balance -- 10 links from stackoverflow in a row is no better than a "show more results from stackoverflow" link since it gives me no sense of what other sites contain -- but it also used to drive me crazy that the only option was either one result from each site or all results from one site. I'd rather have two or three from a single site if they seem like good answers.
"Dozens of results" from one site sounds like they're doing it very wrong sometimes, but the new way is much better in general.
I wonder if this has anything to do with Google wanting to server more and more paid content through Google Play and Youtube. Will Google be on our side or their side when the next SOPA bill appears?
I have no idea what "our side" is supposed to stand for in this context. Is "our side" the side that wants unlimited copyright infringement? I support that side as little as I support SOPA-like bills.
My first reaction on hearing this is the by demoting unauthorized content they will end up indirectly promoting authorized content.
And I don't know how I feel about this. From what we've seen with Youtube where unwarranted claims have taken down videos very much under fair use, I don't want Google automatically demoting search results because of a claim made by another party.
I foresee this causing no small amount of contention.
Google has not shown that it is able to competently handle copyright complaints. YouTube copyright take down notices happen all the time for legitimate content, chances are a similar ratio of false positives for site content.
Sounds like the path to breaking Google's "monopoly" has just been revealed...
Seriously, unless it's just the faintest hint of influence I can see this blowing up in their face. Takedown notices are too ubiquitous and too often bogus.
In addition to this being a dubious signal for measuring result quality, this could have a chilling effect for sites concerned about SEO. We've seen the bizarre rain-dance that businesses are already willing to do to try to improve their position in Google results, and now we can add "avoid fair use" to that dance.
> Starting next week, we will begin taking into account a new signal in our rankings: the number of valid copyright removal notices we receive for any given site.
Following the link, you get to this page of stats ( http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/... ) on take-down requests. If that page is what they make their basis on, then YouTube doesn't crack the top pages, so I would guess that it won't be hurt too badly.
Although, I have no idea if their count for YouTube is accurate or not. It's not like they wouldn't have an interest in under-reporting the numbers.
There's some room for it to be a left hand vs right hand thing. That is, if the YouTube portion of Google is responsive to takedown notices, then the Google Search portion of Google isn't getting notices to remove those pages from the index.
If if YouTube does receive a high level of copyright notices, you can bet they have a special case for ranking YouTube videos, just because they own it.
Oh man, they should've never started with copyright removals in the first place (although I get that it's near impossible to do). This new filter has the same abuse potential as "negative SEO", where competitors posted so many spam links to good sites that they were dropped from the first page (with the competitor's site ranking higher as a result).
What happens if you have two pages, each listing the takedown notices applied to the other? Seed the pages periodically and wouldn't you get a pretty good measure of the popularity of your taken-down links by ranking them based on how often they are taken down?
[+] [-] onli|13 years ago|reply
Already found myself using duckduckgo in such cases, imagining the results were better.
[+] [-] Silhouette|13 years ago|reply
More than ever, thanks to the Internet and ideas like social networking and search engines, independent artists of whatever genre can compete directly with the industry behemoths on merit. These are exactly the kind of people copyright is supposed to help. This is the very essence of promoting the creation and distribution of new works!
If massive industry players like Google are permitted to turn a blind eye to the side effects of their vast resources and almost monopolistic influence, while at the same time making staggering amounts of money helping many people to infringe copyright, then all this does is squash the little guys. It gives all the power back to the industry giants who are big enough to throw their weight around anyway. You know, the ones who have been price gouging for decades and pushing DRM and hiring whole departments to issue takedown notices to anything that vaguely resembles a title of a song they once sold and funding organisations that threaten to sue just about anyone in one of the most flagrant violations of any justice system in recent memory?
Frankly, I think Google have been incredibly lucky that the arm's length/safe harbour philosophy has held up so strongly so far in the global legal landscape. Given that the very thing that makes them so potentially damaging to legal rightsholders is their scale, and they make vast sums of money because of that scale, it would not have been unreasonable to go down a different path and impose more of a burden on them in terms of preventing abuse of their systems to break the law.
If they voluntarily take reasonable steps in that direction anyway, it sends the right message about corporate social responsibility. That alone is worth orders of magnitude more to them than the eyeballs of seventeen people who are going to go use Duck Duck Go for their searches instead. But it also supports the people who actually created the works you apparently enjoy enough to search for them but not enough to pay for them, which is ultimately good for everyone except freeloaders, since it promotes creation of more work, which more people can then search for on Google, and more people can then enjoy.
[+] [-] robrenaud|13 years ago|reply
There tends to be a high bar to meet to push out search quality changes at Google.
[+] [-] barista|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|13 years ago|reply
1) Google algorithmically genreates take down notices on youtube, they move this over to search results.
2) Algorithms 'err on the side of caution' with regard to fair use.
3) Every page that quotes or excerpts a copyrighted work gets flagged.
4) So Google 'manually' makes exceptions for sites they strongly believe won't engage in poor behavior (NY Times, Techcrunch, whatever)
5) No new web site that reviews products or provides critical analysis ever makes it to Google's front page.
That might be a stretch, the auto-flag stuff on YouTube is out of control, and then trying to use that as a signal in results is just inviting abuse. Black hat SEOs are malicious enough without dealing with 'Copyright joejobs'
[ Full disclosure: I work at a search engine blekko.com ]
[+] [-] revelation|13 years ago|reply
They have been asking for this for a long time now. "De-ranking" is number one on this proposal: http://www.scribd.com/doc/79607883/Proposals-to-Search-Engin...
It seems Google has cushioned this in sweet words, as to not make it blatantly obvious.
These sites were very high on the rankings because people click them (and rarely return to search further). Google simply aligned its search results with peoples needs.
Google is enabling media companies in their delusions, when they could be destroying them. They might end up as a casualty.
[+] [-] fpgeek|13 years ago|reply
1. Encourage copyright owners to send more takedowns to Google Search, since those takedowns will be "more powerful".
2. Encourage targeted sites to send more counter-notifications since a Google Search takedown has an effect on an entire site's ranking, not just a particular link.
3. Encourage shared sites (hosting providers, etc.) to shut down particular users or areas that get a lot of Google Search takedowns, to stop the spillover effect on the rest of the site.
I don't know which of these effects will matter the most, but I suspect at least one of them will be behind a significant unexpected consequence of this change.
[+] [-] jakeonthemove|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] guelo|13 years ago|reply
More signs that designers, lawyers and MBAs are moving to the fore forcing engineers out of the way at Google Search.
[+] [-] nkurz|13 years ago|reply
The first 70 results are all from the same site!
It's a decent site, but most of the pages are barely relevant. I was searching multiple viewpoints that might explain why I would prefer one model of a scanner over another, and getting page after page from the same single source is much worse than the previous behaviour.
[+] [-] magicalist|13 years ago|reply
If I'm searching on a programming problem, and google thinks the best two answers are both on stackoverflow, why shouldn't it show them both?
There needs to be a balance -- 10 links from stackoverflow in a row is no better than a "show more results from stackoverflow" link since it gives me no sense of what other sites contain -- but it also used to drive me crazy that the only option was either one result from each site or all results from one site. I'd rather have two or three from a single site if they seem like good answers.
"Dozens of results" from one site sounds like they're doing it very wrong sometimes, but the new way is much better in general.
[+] [-] mtgx|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] forrestthewoods|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HotKFreshSwag|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WiseWeasel|13 years ago|reply
I don't see how the amount of C&D notices correlates with value to users. Google does not appear to be benefiting its users in doing this.
[+] [-] wmf|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lelandbatey|13 years ago|reply
And I don't know how I feel about this. From what we've seen with Youtube where unwarranted claims have taken down videos very much under fair use, I don't want Google automatically demoting search results because of a claim made by another party.
I foresee this causing no small amount of contention.
[+] [-] joeybaker|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] armored_mammal|13 years ago|reply
Seriously, unless it's just the faintest hint of influence I can see this blowing up in their face. Takedown notices are too ubiquitous and too often bogus.
[+] [-] some1else|13 years ago|reply
DMCARank is a Google Custom search that only displays results from the top 50 domains with a high number of DMCA takedown requests (http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/...).
[+] [-] mistercow|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] latchkey|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] somesaba|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] elsewhen|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] B-Con|13 years ago|reply
> Starting next week, we will begin taking into account a new signal in our rankings: the number of valid copyright removal notices we receive for any given site.
Following the link, you get to this page of stats ( http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/... ) on take-down requests. If that page is what they make their basis on, then YouTube doesn't crack the top pages, so I would guess that it won't be hurt too badly.
Although, I have no idea if their count for YouTube is accurate or not. It's not like they wouldn't have an interest in under-reporting the numbers.
[+] [-] simonbrown|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maxerickson|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kragen|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AznHisoka|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davidbrent|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drucken|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brudgers|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yuhong|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RealGeek|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jakeonthemove|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iyulaev|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] some1else|13 years ago|reply