Google is in talks with major payment and credit companies like PayPal, Visa and Mastercard to stop piracy websites from receiving illegal payments.
Google has been a dominant force in working with the entertainment industry to fight piracy. The Internet giant has now decided to tackle the root cause of this illegal activity, payments, and end it once and for all. According to a report by The Telegraph, Google is currently in talks with major payment and credit companies like PayPal, Visa and Mastercard to stop piracy websites from receiving illegal payments.
In an official statement released by the company, it said that while the plan is still in the discussion stage, all companies involved will be aiming at blocking payments to websites that have not responded to legal notices, citing reasons like being offshore.
This is not the first of Google's actions against piracy. The number one search engine took a major step in the summer of 2012 when they made changes in their algorithm to keep away or block piracy websites. Currently, they are looking into a number of valid copyright removal notices. These sites may be entirely removed from showing up in the results of this search engine or may appear way below in the results page.
In a blog by Google writers August 2012, the writers claimed that the main purpose of this action is to provide a great experience for users. The blog confirmed that sites with high numbers of removal notices may appear lower in the search engine's results or may not appear entirely. This would make it easier for users to find "legitimate, quality sources of content more easily-whether it's a song previewed on NPR's music website, a TV show on Hulu or new music streamed from Spotify."
Google also announced that this new plan of action could have dire consequences where companies could use this as a weapon to tackle competition and falsely report their rivals as piracy websites and stop their payments. However, the company clarified that they are doing an extensive study and will put their plan into action this spring, if all is in order.