Hey Google! Get Rid Of This Guy!
Google receives about 10-15 takedown requests per week, according to The Unofficial Google Weblog. These are requests by copyright owners to remove sites that have copyrighted content, which Google reviews and decides if it wants to remove from its index. To Google's credit, if it does remove the site, it includes a letter that explains why, and the letter almost always contains the page's web address. ChillingEffects keeps a record of these cases. Recent cases include 20th Century Fox requesting a newsgroup post that contained a copy of the script for the upcoming film "Dread" be taken down, a request by the copyright owner of the Paris Hilton sex tape to remove sites that sell it illegally, and a request by a guy who wants a site that bashes him to be taken down. I don't think it is Google's responsibility to take down these sites. It should be the problem of the web hosting company or the courts. If the site is taken down, then it becomes Google's responsibility to remove the cached site. Google may be the way people get the web, but it has absolutely no responsibility to police the web, something people sometimes just don't get.

- posted by Nathan Weinberg @ 11/04/2004 12:52:00 AM