Google’s censorship of BitTorrent, Rapidshare, and MegaUpload has begun

Posted by Reza Malayeri Categories: Corporate News, Google, Internet

The age of Google censorship is finally here. Google announced several weeks ago that they planned on rolling out censorship of "piracy related" keywords. Pressure from the RIAA and MPAA has resulted in keyword censorship by Google. Phrases that are currently being censored include: BitTorrent, torrent, utorrent, RapidShare and Megaupload. Interestingly, the censorship does not apply to Google's full search results, and the questionable keywords are only being filtered out of Google's "Autocomplete", and "Instant" services. 

Reports are coming in that Google's censorship is arbitrary. "What is most surprising about the new filter is that the keywords appear to be picked arbitrarily. It includes BitTorrent clients such as uTorrent and Xunlei, but not BitComet and Vuze. While cyberlockers such as RapidShare and Megaupload are banned, prominent sites such as 4shared, HotFile and MediaFire are not." 

This has created an interesting situation for Google. Are they becoming the very thing they despised when they left China? China's censorship of Google was a major factor in the company leaving that country, and now the shoe is on the other foot. 

What do you think about Google's censorship? is broad censorship of arbitrary keywords the answer to stopping piracy? What about the large number of honest BiTtorrent users that will be affected?  

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