Website removal from search engines due to copyright violation
| Date | 21 January 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/AJIM-05-2018-0108 |
| Published date | 21 January 2019 |
| Pages | 54-71 |
| Author | Artur Strzelecki |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management |
Website removal from search
engines due to copyright violation
Artur Strzelecki
Department of Informatics, University of Economics in Katowice,
Katowice, Poland
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to clarify how many removal requests are made, how often, and who
makes these requests, as well as which websites are reported to search engines so they can be removed from
the search results.
Design/methodology/approach –Undertakes a deep analysis of more than 3.2bn removed pages from
Google’s search results requested by reporting organizations from 2011 to 2018 and over 460m removed
pages from Bing’s search results requested by reporting organizations from 2015 to 2017. The paper focuses
on pages that belong to the .pl country coded top-level domain (ccTLD).
Findings –Although the number of requests to remove data from search results has been growing year on
year, fewer URLs have been reported in recent years. Some of the requests are, however, unjustified and are
rejected by teams representing the search engines. In terms of reporting copyright violations, one company in
particular stands out (AudioLock.Net), accounting for 28.1 percent of all reports sent to Google (the top ten
companies combined were responsible for 61.3 percent of the total number of reports).
Research limitations/implications –As not every request can be published, the study is based only what
is publicly available. Also, the data assigned to Poland is only based on the ccTLD domain name (.pl);
other domain extensions for Polish internet users were not considered.
Originality/value –This is first global analysis of data from transparency reports published by search
engine companies as prior research has been based on specific notices.
Keywords Search engines, Data retrieval, Search results, Google,
American digital millennium copyright act (DCMA), Copyright violation
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Many technology companies process vast amounts of data. These include online search
engines, social networks, software-manufacturing companies, manufacturers of computer
and mobile devices and providers of services available on the internet. Depending on the
service(s) they provide, these companies may possess data concerning their users or the
activities performed while taking advantage of the offered services.
Many of these large technology companies like Google[1], Facebook[2]; Microsoft[3],
Twitter[4]; Apple[5]; LinkedIn[6], Snap[7], Pinterest[8], Dropbox[9], Cloudflare[10], Oath[11]
publish transparency reports in which they reveal what actions they take concerning the
processed data as well as who initiated these actions. Data published in transparency
reports may be requested by government agencies from various countries, non-government
organizations, companies or private entities.
Government agencies usually require technology companies to share data concerning
specific users of the company’s services or demand the removal of publicly available data.
Data on such requests are usually published every six months and include the number of
applications sentfrom a given country and the type of request, i.e., whether it is a request to
share data or removecontent. State institutions,courts and parties in civil cases oftenrequest
users’data from telecommunications and technical companies. National government bodies
may ask technology companies to remove access to published content that, in their opinion,
Aslib Journal of Information
Management
Vol. 71 No. 1, 2019
pp. 54-71
© Emerald PublishingLimited
2050-3806
DOI 10.1108/AJIM-05-2018-0108
Received 10 June 2018
Revised 14 August 2018
25 September 2018
Accepted 1 October 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/2050-3806.htm
The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful and constructive comments
that greatly contributed to improving the final version of the paper.
54
AJIM
71,1
violates state legislation. Such applications are analyzed to determine whether the content
actually violates the provisions of national law. If upheld, access to such content in a given
country or territoryis blocked. Some applicationsare justified on the grounds of defamationof
character or other allegations, including violating local laws that prohibit the incitement of
hatred or publishing adult-only contents. In such cases, the law differs in different countries.
In their reports, companies present information concerning the number and type of requests
they receive from government agencies. They publish the information in order to show the
impact of government actions on users and the free flow of information on the internet.
Non-government organizations, companies and private entities usually send requests to
remove publicly available content due to copyright violation. Types of content that may be
subject to removal depend usually on the technology company and the manner in which it
shares the data. In terms of search engines, search results for specific websites may be
removed. For social networks, the types of content removed include individual posts,
photos, videos, advertisements, profiles, accounts, sites, groups and events. For data-storage
and data-sharing services, the types of content removed include stored text documents and
graphic, audio or video files. A request sent by a copyright owner is usually processed by a
team responsible for intellectual property and copyright. If the team determines that the
application is complete and correct then the requested content is removed.
Private entities residing within the European Union and the European Economic Area may
request the removal of data from a search engine in order to protect personal data.
In May 2014 the Court of Justice of the European Union, when considering the case of a resident
of Spain (Frantziou, 2014), Mario Costeja González, against Google, determined that every
private entity has the right to request that search engine operators such as Google or Bing
remove search results including the name and surname of such an entity. The search engine’s
operator must comply with such a request if the links indicated in it lead to information which
is improper, exaggerated, inadequate, or insignificant, taking into consideration the public
interest, including such factors as the role of that person in public life. The links are removed
only from results pertinent to the request, including the name and surname of that person.
Concerning searches within the European Economic Area, URLs are removed from all
European search results. With the use of geolocation, the access to URLs is restricted based on
the country of the person requesting their removal. If a query in the form of a name
and surname is entered into the search engine, then the following message is displayed below
the search results: “Some results may have been removed under data protection law in Europe.”
Technology companies usually have forms available for requesting the removal of
content. The forms are sent by government agencies, copyright owners and private entities
that want to take advantage of the right to be forgotten. The form usually requires a
declaration that the requestor is the owner of copyright or content or is the person whose
data is being processed, as well details of from where the content should be removed, or
stopped from being displayed in the case of search results. A request to remove content
based on copyright violation should only be processed after receiving an official request
form; however, in order to take advantage of the right to be forgotten, one has only to
confirm one’s identity with an appropriate identity document.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. In the next section, a review of the relevant
literature is undertaken. Then the context of study and study setup is described and,
following this, the results are presented and discussed. Finally, conclusions are drawn.
Literature review
An analysis of the literature regarding search engines reveals two main fields. The first
consists of research conducted to understand how search results are generated and what
impact they have, including both organic results and sponsored search results. The second
concerns reports of copyright violations and the proposed solutions.
55
Website
removal from
search engines
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