Google Search goes after fraudulent and manipulative DMCA takedown requests

Google has filed a lawsuit in the northern district of California against two men who allegedly used the DMCA takedown request mechanism to try to remove competitor URLs from the search results. The lawsuit writes that the “defendants have weaponized copyright law’s notice-and-takedown process and used it not for its intended purpose of expeditiously removing infringing content, but instead to have the legitimate content of their competitors removed based on false allegations.”

The lawsuit. You can read the PDF document of the lawsuit over here; it says:

“Google brings this action to stop Defendants’ systematic abuse of Google accounts to
submit a barrage of fraudulent copyright takedown requests aimed at removing hundreds of thousands
of their competitors’ website URLs from Google Search results. Defendants have weaponized copyright law’s notice-and-takedown process and used it not for its intended purpose of expeditiously removing infringing content, but instead to have the legitimate content of their competitors removed based on false allegations. Defendants’ illegal, fraudulent scheme harms consumers, third-party businesses, and
Google; stifles competition; and threatens to tarnish Google’s trusted brand.”