Google Categorically Refuses To Remove the Pirate Bay's Homepage

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: This year alone, at least 15 separate takedown notices ask Google to remove ThePirateBay.org from its index. Most of these are sent by the reporting agency Digimarc, on behalf of book publishers such as Penguin Random House, Kensington Publishing, and Recorded Books. This year alone, at least 15 separate takedown notices ask Google to remove ThePirateBay.org from its index. Most of these are sent by the reporting agency Digimarc, on behalf of book publishers such as Penguin Random House, Kensington Publishing, and Recorded Books. Over the years, The Pirate Bay's homepage has been targeted more than 70 times. While there's no shortage of reports, TPB's homepage is still in Google's index.

Since TPB's homepage is not infringing, Google categorically refuses to remove it from its search results. While the site itself has been downranked, due to the high number of takedown requests Google receives for it, ThePirateBay.org remains listed. Google did remove The Pirate Bay's homepage in the past, by accident, but that was swiftly corrected. "Google received a (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) take-down request that erroneously listed Thepiratebay.org, and as a result, this URL was accidentally removed from the Google search index," Google said at the time. "We are now correcting the removal, and you can expect to see Thepiratebay.org back in Google search results this afternoon," the company added.