Google Blocking Torrent Searches

Google is blocking searches originating from torrent sites using Google Custom Search to find .torrent files, according to uTorrent.com and in response to the highly publicized trial of The Pirate Bay in Sweden. The proprietors of the Pirate Bay received copyright industry-connected judge after arguments their search, indexing, and linking service was the same as Google’s failed to convince. The judge convicted them for assisting copyright infringement.

ThePirateGoogle.com was launched to illustrate how the same files could easily be found in Google’s own index simply by using the search query operator filetype: .torrent. Using Google’s Custom Search, results were limited to torrent files only. Since Google’s block on the URL, ThePirateGoogle has redirected searches to an unblocked URL.

An Italian Google executive reportedly