Google and others to ban piracy links from search engines

Representatives of the major search engines are close to striking a voluntary deal with entertainment companies to prevent indexing of webpages that contain infringing content. As you may have noticed from time to time, search engines sometimes point you to piracy sites, even if you are not actively looking for pirated content.

Search engines like Google get flooded with over a billion takedown requests a year, but the entertainment industry demands more stringent, proactive measures. TorrentFreak claims a deal is extremely close to being signed and reports Google and others agreed to implement anti-piracy code by June 1, 2017:

Google and other search companies are close to striking a voluntary agreement with entertainment companies to tackle the appearance of infringing content links in search results. Following roundtable discussions chaired by the UK's Intellectual Property Office, all parties have agreed that the code should take effect by June 1, 2017.

This particular deal seems focused on the UK but will likely result in similar action in other countries.