Google will block ads from pirating sites

Google, Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft are among the eight companies that are committing to fight internet piracy.

The move will allow industry copyright holders in the music, film, television, books and other creative ventures to alert Google should their adverts appear on illegal sites. This would allow Google to eradicate the problem of pirated content without having to modify its search results.

Websites offering illegal music and film downloads attract huge amounts of traffic through Google each month, and tend to attract the young demographic advertisers aim to target.

In the latest effort to control online piracy, a new US scheme intends to ban all the Google ads containing pirated content on the internet. According to Victoria Espinel, coordinator of US Intellectual Property Enforcement, this scheme will make a positive development in reducing online piracy by not allowing the websites to display ads offering any pirated contents. Websites offering pirated content will be blocked from offering adverts from Google and other big web advertisers, in an US scheme intended to strangle illicit revenues.

The initiative will mean copyright holders from the music, film and other creative industries will be able to alert the big ad networks if their ads are appearing on sites offering links to pirated content or counterfeit goods. The British music industry body, the BPI, is also working with the Internet Advertising Bureau in the UK on a scheme that has yet to be announced which will involve a central database of piracy sites for ad networks, agencies and brands to refer to and avoid when planning campaigns. Pirate sites often make large amounts of money from Google and other advertisers because millions of users visit their sites every month – and often have the sort of age profile that web advertisers are keen to reach. One British site that linked to pirated content, Surfthechannel, made as much as £35,000 per month from on-site adverts before its owner was jailed. Emails from

The Pirate Bay revealed ahead of its founders' trial some years ago showed it was offered £65,000 per month to run casino and poker ads. A study by the University of Southern California's Annenberg Innovation Laboratory in January found that Google and Yahoo were two of the biggest advertisers on pirate sites. Though both companies include clauses in their contracts forbidding sites from displaying their ads if they help piracy, the responsibility for checking tends to lie with the owner of pirated content.  

Such sites tend to use adverts as a revenue source because it means they don't have to set up merchant accounts with organisations such as PayPal, Visa and Mastercard to process payments from customers who might anyway be unwilling to pay them for content. In July 2012, Google collaborated with British collecting society PRS for Music and BAE Systems Detica on research which indicated that advertising funded 86% of music filesharing sites. That has led to campaigns by musicians including David Lowery and former Longpigs vocalist Crispin Hunt to stop advertising networks and major brands allowing their adverts on pirate sites.

 These kind of sites use ads as revenue source since this practice allows them to earn a lot of money without even setting up any kind of merchant accounts with the common merchant organizations like the PayPal, Mastercard or Visa. Therefore, in order to prevent such cases in the future, the new US scheme will compel the networks to implement some compulsory guidelines for preventing appearance of ads which are accused of digital piracy and counterfeiting of goods.

However, it is still not clear how this scheme will prevent the ads which are not reported by the right holders but even blocking the reported sites from showing up in Google can be a huge step in controlling the ubiquitous online piracy. So, it seems like this new scheme will prove to be effective to a great extent in blocking ads promoting pirated and fake contents all over the internet.