Search engines favor piracy

Not only in Brazil, but everywhere in the globe, lots are said about safety when it comes to the releasing of personal data – at the same time in which content production heavily increases on a daily basis. With free access to any kind of information, the user is instantly involved with which is happening that very moment, no matter where he/she is. Therefore, up until what point is the content the user is exposed to is quality content? Up to what point is mass production safe?

A cold analysis shows that great part of the content available online is irrelevant, sometimes false even, which can generate negative results for the users, without their awareness. The cases in which people suffer with online ‘jokes’ are not rare. A recent study carried out by TeleSign points out that up to 40% of the worldwide network have been through some kind of web-related hassle.

Another great problem involves the ones who produce online content. With a demanding audience, investment in quality material is essential to produce content that is attractive to the users. But how should we do it if we’ll almost certainly be copied by the internet pirates?

Two of the fields that suffer the most with this problematic are cultural production, and adult content. How can these professionals offer quality material for all if search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing don’t help at all with the results they offer after a user search? One of the alternatives found by workers is de-indexation so we can have access to a safe, quality-driven delivery of results.

A victim of piracy cases is Bella Club itself. The user accesses Google, for example, and searches for more information on a given model who is currently on the website. The results are astonishing: mainly because on the top results are pornographic websites which steal Bella Club’s original material in order to replicate it, free of charge. Some low-quality website even publishes photos and videos stolen from a person’s personal computer or mobile phone. In other words, piracy gets more attention in the search engine tools than correct, safe, original content websites.

The same happens with movies and songs. If you search for “Titanic the movie”, for example, 90% of the first results shown include pirate websites that have illegally uploaded the movie, offering it for free to the users – but not necessarily safely.

When unadvised users click on these links, they run serious risk of contaminating their devices with viruses or spywares, leaving their personal information insecure – including bank account data, as well as photos, and videos.

Some countries in Europe have been trying to eradicate the issue. The ‘right of forgetting’ offers European citizens the option of requiring search engines to remove certain content if they see fit, especially if the exposed content is considered imprecise, irrelevant, inadequate, or even excessive for the data processing itself.

In short, internet piracy is bad both for companies and people. In a way, search engines are the main channel for piracy to gain more space in people’s routines, since engines index all the online content available, not making a distinction between what’s safe for the users, and what is not.

It is about time Google, Yahoo, Bing, and others started adopting a smarter system for delivering better results to their users, who trust the content they share as results of a given search.

Alexandre Peccin
www.bellaclub.com