Google and Bing agree crackdown on pirate websites

Internet users will find it harder to search for illegally streamed live football matches and pirated music under a new crackdown on illegal websites. Search engine giants Google and Bing have signed up to a new voluntary code designed to stop people from visiting disreputable content providers. The code will accelerate the demotion of illegal sites following notices from rights holders and is the first of its kind in the UK.

What we want to ensure is that the results at the top of the search engines are the genuine ones. It is about protecting people who use the internet, but also protecting the creators of that material too.

Eddy Leviten, director general at entertainment biz organization the Alliance for Intellectual Property

The tech giants have committed to demote websites that have repeatedly been served with copyright infringement notices, so that they do not appear on the first page for common searches. Search engine autocomplete functions, a time-saving feature that suggests what users may be looking for, should also remove terms that may lead to pirate websites rather than legitimate services that pay fees to copyright holders.

When you explain to them that they need to protect their ideas, their content, from being stolen or pirated, they understand.

Office (IPO

Technology