Google has filed a lawsuit within the northern district of California in opposition to two males who allegedly used the DMCA takedown request mechanism to attempt to take away competitor URLs from the search outcomes. The lawsuit writes that the “defendants have weaponized copyright regulation’s notice-and-takedown course of and used it not for its supposed function of expeditiously eradicating infringing content material, however as an alternative to have the legit content material of their opponents eliminated primarily based on false allegations.”
The lawsuit. You’ll be able to learn the PDF doc of the lawsuit over here; it says:
“Google brings this motion to cease Defendants’ systematic abuse of Google accounts to
submit a barrage of fraudulent copyright takedown requests aimed toward eradicating a whole bunch of 1000’s
of their opponents’ web site URLs from Google Search outcomes. Defendants have weaponized copyright regulation’s notice-and-takedown course of and used it not for its supposed function of expeditiously eradicating infringing content material, however as an alternative to have the legit content material of their opponents eliminated primarily based on false allegations. Defendants’ unlawful, fraudulent scheme harms shoppers, third-party companies, and
Google; stifles competitors; and threatens to tarnish Google’s trusted model.”
Extra particulars. The lawsuit claims that two people created at the least 65 Google accounts to submit 1000’s of pretend DMCA claims. These have been filed in opposition to 117, third-party web site URLS within the house of promoting printed t-shirts.
“Over the previous few years, Nguyen, Pham and people working with them, are mentioned to have created at the least 65 Google accounts to ship confirmed bogus notices concentrating on 117,000 URLs, plus one other 500,000 URLs through notices that Google suspects are fraudulent too,” reported TorrentFreak.
Why we care. Google clearly desires to ship a message to anybody attempting to make use of the DMCA takedown request to hurt opponents withing Google Search or to attempt to enhance their very own rankings by eradicating these listings above them. We imagine that is the primary lawsuit filed by Google over such allegations and it might not be the final.
