Google has begun filtering out search results from BitTorrent sites and popular cyberlockers such as Rapidshare and Megaupload.
The company announced late last year that it would “prevent terms that are closely associated with piracy from appearing” in the Autocomplete feature on its search page.
Words that no longer generate autocomplete results include several variations on “torrent”, including the word itself, as well as BitTorrent and uTorrent — a popular BitTorrent client.
The censorship means that even searches for unquestionably legal torrents, a Linux distribution, for instance, will not generate the required result.
Simon Morris of San Francisco-based BitTorrent Inc., said the filter is too indiscriminate.
“A quick search for ‘BitTorrent’ currently returns a variety of legitimate and useful links, including company information, our software, our open-source protocol, and more. What Google may not realise is that our technology is used for many purposes that provide significant value to the technology industry, companies, artists and consumers at large,” he told Torrent Freak.
The filter also seems to be haphazard. Some torrent clients and cyberlockers are banned; others aren’t. Perhaps most surprising of all, The Pirate Bay escaped the cull — at least for now.
And ironically, Google has disable autocomplete for Xunlei, a Chinese torrent client, which in 2006 received a $5 million investment, from Google.
