Govt Bill to Block Infringing Sites from Appearing in SERPs
 

Several senators on Thursday revived legislation that would allow the U.S. government to go after "rogue Web sites" that contain infringing content.

The Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property (PROTECT IP) Act would allow the government to get court orders that would require ISPs, search engines, ad networks, and online payment processors to stop supporting sites with pirated content. Comcast couldn't direct traffic to these sites, for example, nor could Google include links in its search results to an infringing site.

"The PROTECT IP Act targets the most egregious actors, and is an important first step to putting a stop to online piracy and sale of counterfeit goods," Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat and one of the bill's sponsors, said in a statement.

"With this legislation, we are sending a strong message to those selling or distributing counterfeit goods online that the United States will strongly protect its intellectual property rights," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican and bill co-sponsor. "Just because it's on the Internet doesn't mean it's free. Fake pharmaceuticals threaten people's lives. Stolen movies, music, and other products put many out of work."

more - http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2385307,00.asp

The biggest issue will be some of the definitions used in the bill as to what constitutes an infringing site. As it is written, sites like twitter and FB could be considered infringing sites.

Curious to see how this turns out.

twitter and FB should be blocked from the serps too then, it wouldn't hurt them anyways because their traffic doesn't come from search engines :2 cents:

how the fuck could they distinguish infringing sites?

anyone who thinks this bill is going to pass as written is an idiot

when the free speech advocates lobby against this bill it will become as "toothless" as the DMCA

good opportunity for a new search engine.

interesting...im going to try and watch this play out

Def needs some tweaking for it to pass. Some of the bill's scope is too broad.

Kind a sound more like they aim against counterfeit sites then pirate sites.

Those clueless retards should do us all a favor and keep their corrupt hands off the net. They are so ignorant when it comes to Internet issues and how the net functions it's scary.