French Supreme Court orders Google to censor piracy related terms in Instant search and Autocomplete

The French Supreme Court has handed down a ruling that Google must censor terms such as "torrent," "RapidShare," and other phrases that could be related to illegal file sharing. The decision was in response to a case brought by SNEP, a French music industry group, requesting that Google be forced to censor its results and be held accountable for facilitating piracy. The court ruled that the Mountain View company couldn't be held responsible for people's decision to click through to sites containing illegal material. But it reversed a lower court decision, demanding that related terms be removed from its autocomplete database to making finding such content more difficult. Google was understandably disapointed by the ruling, especially since the company already actively blocks some piracy related search terms. But, that apparently wasn't enough for the SNEP. Check out the ruling itself at the more coverage link.

Filed under: Internet

French Supreme Court orders Google to censor piracy related terms in Instant search and Autocomplete originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Jul 2012 11:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.