• Google seems to be moderating content that users are saving to collections in Saved by Google.
• One user had a link of a torrent site that they saved deleted by the search giant.
• It seems Google is deleting links associated to websites that it has struck down from search because of copyright violations.

Pirates beware. Search giant Google is reportedly taking its crackdown on dodgy links further, and is now scraping the personal collections of users to delete links it believes go against its copyright rules, such as those for torrent sites.

These are websites where users can find and download pirated material, such as the latest series or films, for free.

The Alphabet-owned search giant has begun looking through links, such as for these sites, that users have collected through Saved on Google, and if they violate the company’s content policy, is deleting them.

This was first picked up by Torrent Freak, a niche publication that primarily covers news on internet piracy. They received an email from a reader from Saved on Google, telling them a link they had collected had been struck down.

The link that was taken down is to the now-defunct, but once widely popular torrent site Kickass Torrents.

“The following saved item in one of your collections was determined to violate Google’s policy,” the automated email reads, “As a result, the item will be moderated as described below.”

This moderation takes the guise of being hidden from users, worldwide and indefinitely.

Saved on Google is a feature, similar to Pinterest, that allows users to collect links, websites, images and more. Users can customise these collections as they see fit, and it is basically a more in-depth way to keep bookmarks. Links can be saved directly from Google search by clicking the “Save” button as seen in the below screenshot.

It seems the collections you have put together are not private from the watchful eye of Google, and will moderate the content you save here too, including links to torrent sites. In terms of the user who reached out with the information, the Kickass Torrents link was removed because of the perceived “downstream impact due to the URL being blocked by Google Search.”

According to research done by Torrent Freak on the matter, it seems Google is removing saved links that correspond with URLs that have been removed from Google Search for copyright issues, these include a YouTube video ripper and other torrent download sites.

Also, the removals seem to be focused on single URLs and not entire domains. For example, an infamous pirating site that is still visible on Google Search can be added to a collection, but keeping individual links from the site will see them removed.

As of right now, the impact of this moderation is limited, as not everyone uses the Saved feature. However, if Google starts moderating actual bookmarks on Chrome, for example, things could get difficult for the internet pirates.

[Image – CC 0 Pixabay]