Month: March 2020

Golem Akademie: “IT-Sicherheit für Webentwickler” als Live-Webinar

Wegen der Corona-Pandemie findet unser Workshop zur IT-Sicherheit für Webentwickler nicht als Präsenzseminar, sondern im Netz statt: in einem Live-Webinar Ende April mit Golem.de-Redakteur und IT-Sicherheitsexperte Hanno Böck. (Golem Akademie, SQL)

Wegen der Corona-Pandemie findet unser Workshop zur IT-Sicherheit für Webentwickler nicht als Präsenzseminar, sondern im Netz statt: in einem Live-Webinar Ende April mit Golem.de-Redakteur und IT-Sicherheitsexperte Hanno Böck. (Golem Akademie, SQL)

Copyright Holders Continue to Report Fewer Piracy Links to Google Search

Over the past year, copyright holders have asked Google to remove a little over 500 million URLs from its search engine. This is a 50% decrease compared to a few years ago when the company processed over a billion URLs in a year. At least in part, the decease is likely the result of Google’s anti-piracy measures.

Drom: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, torrent sites and more. We also have an annual VPN review.

For most people, search engines such as Google are an essential tool to discover and enjoy the web in all its glory.

With help from complicated algorithms, the company offers a gateway to billions of sites, many of which would otherwise remain undiscovered.

This also includes many ‘pirate’ sites. While there are plenty of people who don’t mind seeing these show up in search results, their presence is a thorn in the side of copyright holders.

Roughly a decade ago this was hardly recognized as a problem. At the time, Google was asked to remove a few dozen URLs per day. In the years that followed, that changed drastically.

In 2012, Google was asked to remove more than 50 million URLs and by 2016, the search engine processed more than a billion reported URLs a year. This increase in notices coincided in large part with heavy critique from copyright holders, which asked Google to do more to curb piracy.

These comments didn’t go unnoticed at the Googleplex in Mountain View. In recent years, the search engine has taken a variety of measures to ensure that pirate sites are less visible. This includes demoting known offenders in search results.

Around the same time, the number of takedown requests from copyright holders started to drop. While we don’t know if that’s directly related to Google’s anti-piracy measures, it is clear that the number of reported URLs has gone down significantly.

According to Google’s transparency report, the company processed little over 500 million takedown requests over the past 12 months. That’s a 50% decrease compared to the billion it received a few years ago, and a 25% decrease compared to two years ago, when we first noticed the shift.

The decrease is in large part caused by the most active senders of takedown requests. For example, three years ago UK music group BPI sent in an average of two million URLs per week, with peaks of over three million. This year, the same group is averaging less than a million per week.

Similarly, the Mexican music group APDIF previously reported over four million pirate links to Google every week. This has now dropped to a few thousand, including some weeks with zero requests.

Also, MarkMonitor, which works with many Hollywood studios, reduced its takedown requests by roughly half.

While the data can’t be linked directly to Google’s anti-piracy measures, BPI Chief Executive Geoff Taylor informed us earlier this month that demotion of known pirate sites “has significantly improved the quality of results presented to consumers.”

After years of animosity between copyright holders and Google, both in public and behind closed doors, that’s certainly a major change in attitude.

Drom: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, torrent sites and more. We also have an annual VPN review.

Insert Coin, the arcade documentary worth feeding all your quarters into 

Midway created icons from Mortal Kombat to NBA Jam; this doc is finally widely available.

The trailer for Insert Coin.

You may not know longtime game developer Joshua Tsui, but you know his work. Over two decades-plus in the industry, he founded Studio Gigante (makers of Wrestlemania 21 for the original Xbox) and spent time at industry stalwarts like EA. His credits include beloved franchises from Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater to Fight Night.

Despite building that kind of resume, however, Tsui’s first passion wasn’t the gamepad—he actually went to school to study film. And in the early 2010s, well, “I don’t want to call it a midlife crisis, but I realized after all this time I hadn’t made a film,” he told Ars recently.

Tsui had done some video work—marketing for the games he worked on; a few making-of shorts here and there—just never a feature film. Luckily, when he sat down with Polygon in 2012 to talk about his past, he realized the perfect idea had been waiting for him all along. In our post-Indie Game and King of Kong reality, all he had to do was look to his professional beginning: Chicago, 1993, pushing pixels on 2D arcade games with the teams behind Mortal Kombat and NBA Jam at the soon-to-be-legendary arcade developer, Midway Games.

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SpaceX: DragonXL soll Raumstation im Mondorbit versorgen

Größere Frachter sollen mit größeren Raketen eine kleinere Raumstation versorgen, die weiter weg ist. SpaceX bekommt einen Teil eines 7-Milliarden-Dollar-Auftrags. (SpaceX, Nasa)

Größere Frachter sollen mit größeren Raketen eine kleinere Raumstation versorgen, die weiter weg ist. SpaceX bekommt einen Teil eines 7-Milliarden-Dollar-Auftrags. (SpaceX, Nasa)

Bogus coronavirus claims lead Google Play to finally give Infowars the boot

Apple kicked Alex Jones out of the App Store in 2018.

Alex Jones of InfoWars talks to reporters outside a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing concerning foreign influence operations' use of social media platforms, on Capitol Hill, September 5, 2018 in Washington, DC

Enlarge / Alex Jones of InfoWars talks to reporters outside a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing concerning foreign influence operations' use of social media platforms, on Capitol Hill, September 5, 2018 in Washington, DC (credit: Drew Angerer | Getty Images)

On Friday, Google removed the Infowars Android app from its Play Store, extinguishing one of the last mainstream strongholds of infamous conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. The takedown came on the heels of a video, posted in the Infowars app last week and viewed by Wired, in which Jones disputed the need for social distancing, shelter in place, and quarantine efforts meant to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Google confirmed to Wired that it removed the app on Friday. The app had more than 100,000 downloads according to Google Play's published metrics, and was rated "E10+," meaning safe for all users 10 and older. The Infowars app sold products like supplements and protein powder, broadcast The Alex Jones Show live, and posted videos and articles from Jones and others.

"Now more than ever, combating misinformation on the Play Store is a top priority for the team," a Google spokesperson told Wired. "When we find apps that violate Play policy by distributing misleading or harmful information, we remove them from the store."

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