Google Will Now Remove Counterfeit Goods From Search

Google has updated its legal troubleshooter form to allow users to submit requests to take down counterfeit goods from the organic search results. This is similar to the DMCA request, in fact, it is the same form, but it can now also be used for removing counterfeit goods.

I reported this in a bit more detail at 3am this morning at Search Engine Land. But in short, if you go to that form, you can now also ask Google to manually review not just DMCA issues but counterfeit good issues.

This is a policy Google has on the Google Ads side, in fact, Google has removed countless ads for counterfeit goods over the years. But this was never a policy on the organic search side.

This is manual, human driven. Meaning, a human has to report the issue to Google via that form. A human a Google has to review the form and make a decision if the URL should be removed from Google’s search results.

I should add, this is specific for counterfeit goods, not for non-counterfeit forms of trademark infringement.

Here is the new option in this form:

Eventually Google will use what it has learned from collecting this data, i.e. the human submissions, to build something like the DMCA/pirate algorithm that aims to algorithmically find and remove copyrighted content from Google’s results. It is far from perfect, so expect Google to the human and manual method for a long time.

Forum discussion at Twitter.