Microsoft Sends Google A DMCA Notice... To Block Microsoft's Bing Search Engine

from the you-can't-make-this-stuff-up dept

Ah, bogus DMCA notices that you just can't make up. TorrentFreak has a good article highlighting a completely bogus DMCA notice from Microsoft (sent by one of its partners on its behalf) that tries to take a bunch of legitimate news sites out of Google's index, on the mistaken claim that they violated Windows 8 copyrights. But, even more ridiculous is an aside mentioned in the article, that some other DMCA notices appear to target, Microsoft's own search engine. Indeed, they're not that hard to find. If you look up DMCA notices asking Google to remove links to Bing , Microsoft shows up quite a bit:If you dig down, you can find out the specifics, such as this DMCA notice sent on May 23 of this year , sent by Marketly on behalf of Microsoft, supposedly to stop the infringement of Office 2010. It lists out 997 URLs that it wants Google to take out of its search results, including a link to a Bing search. Given that Microsoft owns Bing... you'd think it would remove that search first. What's even more amusing is that if you go to the link in question on Bing... it's still there.Yes, this is yet another silly move by an automated system, but it once again highlights some of the ridiculousness involved in DMCA takedowns for search results.

Filed Under: automated, bing, copyright, dmca, takedowns

Companies: google, microsoft