Internet giants agree on bid to block ads promoting piracy
16 Jul 2013
Uniting against a common threat, internet giants Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL have all signed up to a new set of US guidelines aimed at preventing ads that promote piracy or counterfeiting.
The Best Practices Guidelines for Ad Network to Address Piracy and Counterfeiting, formulated by the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC), also have the support of other groups like 24/7 Media, Adtegrity, Condé Nast and SpotXchange.
The new guidelines, announced on Monday, call on internet companies to have public policies against sites that sell counterfeit goods or engage in piracy, and to operate 'notice and takedown' systems. Ad networks can voluntarily pull ads from infringing websites or remove them from the ad network altogether.
''By working across the industry, these best practices should help reduce the financial incentives for pirate sites by cutting off their revenue supply while maintaining a healthy internet and promoting innovation,'' said Susan Molinari, Google's vice president for public policy and government relations.
The guidelines don't offer any guarantees, on the ground that ad networks can't remove websites from the internet – and can't be expected to act as police and determine a particular party's intellectual property rights.
''Intellectual property holders are expected to be accurate in demonstrating infringement of their copyrights and trademark rights and to target only infringing conduct,'' the guidelines read. Affected websites will be able to appeal by filing a counter-notice.
