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Google sues people who “weaponized” DMCA to remove rivals’ search results (arstechnica.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Google yesterday sued a group of people accused of weaponizing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to get competitors' websites removed from search results. Over the past few years, the foreign defendants "created at least 65 Google accounts so they could submit thousands of fraudulent notices of copyright infringement against more than 117,000 third-party website URLs," said Google's lawsuit filed in US District Court for the Northern District of California.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Google yesterday sued a group of people accused of weaponizing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to get competitors' websites removed from search results.

"To date, Defendants' scheme has forced Google to investigate and respond to fraudulent takedown requests targeting more than 117,000 third-party website URLs, as well as takedown requests targeting more than half a million additional third-party URLs that are likely fraudulent based on preliminary investigation," the lawsuit said.

But the lawsuit helps show how easy it is for fraudsters to game Google's system for responding to DMCA notices.

The defendants provided fake names in their takedown requests and "falsely purported to represent large companies (e.g., Amazon, Twitter, NBC News), sports teams (e.g., Philadelphia Eagles, Los Angeles Lakers, San Diego Padres), prominent individuals (e.g., Elon Musk, Taylor Swift, LeVar Burton, Kanye West), and famous bands (e.g., Blink 182)," the Google lawsuit said.

For example, "Defendants falsely claimed to represent Elon Musk, alleging infringement of a t-shirt with a logo with the text 'Pharmacy Technician,'" the lawsuit said.

"Defendants signed and submitted their thousands of fraudulent takedown requests containing false information under penalty of perjury," Google said.

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