AfterDawn: News

'BitTorrent' and 'uTorrent' return to Google autocomplete searches

Over the last few years, Google has acquiesced to Hollywood and the music industry, blacklisting almost fifty piracy-related terms from appearing in Autocomplete and Instant Services.

According to Freak, Google has recently unbanned at least two of those terms, the most popular clients, 'BitTorrent' and 'uTorrent.'



BitTorrent Inc., the company behind the client, has long shown disappointment that Google labeled them as "piracy related."

For the last few months, the company has continuously pleaded to Google to get the name removed from filters, and those efforts appear to have paid off.

"This is almost certainly a result of that improving understanding helped by products like BitTorrent Bundle and BitTorrent Sync. They help those who are confused about BitTorrent understand that it is not a piracy website," a BitTorrent Inc. spokesperson added.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 24 Sep 2013 23:06

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• 13 comments

• hearme0

  Shame on Google for conceding!!
  
  Shoulda stood their ground!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  25.9.2013 13:57 #1

• Bionetic

  Did you read the article? They removed the search term 'uTorrent' and 'Bittorrent' from the filters because the companies of the same name were being unfairly punished for piracy, an activity that they don't support. Yes their tech is used for piracy, but the companies should be punished for what the consumer does with the product. That's like punishing Google because a terrorist uses GMail to communicate with other terrorists.

  27.9.2013 11:19 #2

• buckethead99

  Sarcasm I do think.
  

  27.9.2013 14:15 #3

• pmshah

  Originally posted by Bionetic: Did you read the article? They removed the search term 'uTorrent' and 'Bittorrent' from the filters because the companies of the same name were being unfairly punished for piracy, an activity that they don't support. Yes their tech is used for piracy, but the companies should be punished for what the consumer does with the product. That's like punishing Google because a terrorist uses GMail to communicate with other terrorists. or uses google maps to locate / select targets !
  
  You might as well ban all the kitchen knives and hacksaws - they can be used to kill people!

  28.9.2013 12:25 #4

• Mez

  pmshah - your suggestion is too close to gun laws which are in existence. Do those laws work? VA and DC share a common border. DC has some of the most restrictive bans on guns is ultra high on crime while VA is fairly free with guns has little gun crime. The reason, VA is severe on crimes committed with a gun. If you are a professional criminal you take the time to go to DC for crime since sentencing is very light. You could be in and out 3 times for armed robbery in DC before you get out in VA. In DC the criminals are smarted than the law makers.
  
  More to the point, ban computers because they are the center point to piracy.

  1.10.2013 08:28 #5

• pmshah

  Originally posted by Mez: pmshah - your suggestion is too close to gun laws which are in existence. Do those laws work? VA and DC share a common border. DC has some of the most restrictive bans on guns is ultra high on crime while VA is fairly free with guns has little gun crime. The reason, VA is severe on crimes committed with a gun. If you are a professional criminal you take the time to go to DC for crime since sentencing is very light. You could be in and out 3 times for armed robbery in DC before you get out in VA. In DC the criminals are smarted than the law makers.
  
  More to the point, ban computers because they are the center point to piracy. IMHO that is the biggest flaw in Federal government system. What is required is identical laws across the entire country. I am a regular follower of Bill Maher and Jon Stewart. The way the whole political system is working is unbelievable. Gerrymandering electoral districts, attempts at disenfranchising the minorities or "have-nots", holding up / delaying the proceedings in the congress and senate by stupid filibustering rules, Zimmerman kind court verdicts. You name it ! I would not be surprised if they passed a law that would put you behind bars for several life times just for having BitTorrent software on your PC. After all it the allegedly affected industry that paid for the judges, senators and congressmens vacations, election campaigns, mistresses and what not !!!!!

  1.10.2013 15:14 #6

• Mez

  Yes, the Republicans are a 'dog in the manger' (dogs do not eat hay but the like to prevent the livestock from eating it. I am not a fan of Obama care but they (Rs) had their chance. It (Obamacare)is ready to roll lets give it a shot and see what happens. I do not see the sense of pulling the plug when they are starting to post prices. If everyone hates it then we can pull the plug.
  
  Half the nation will need someone else to pay their bill. Our heath care is a trillion dollar system. Not giving anyone to afford health care a 15-20k/yr health plan is not cruel or unusual punishment if you have to foot the bill. Maybe you think only the rich will pay for it WRONG! Someone is going to have to cough up a trillion dollars! If you are making enough to pay taxes you will be the one paying for it. We are still spending over 1 trillion dollars more a year than we take in. When the crap hits the fan who ever is in the US will be in for a world of hurt. The great depression will seem like happy days.

  1.10.2013 18:27 #7

• pmshah

  Originally posted by Mez: Yes, the Republicans are a 'dog in the manger' (dogs do not eat hay but the like to prevent the livestock from eating it. I am not a fan of Obama care but they (Rs) had their chance. It (Obamacare)is ready to roll lets give it a shot and see what happens. I do not see the sense of pulling the plug when they are starting to post prices. If everyone hates it then we can pull the plug.
  
  Half the nation will need someone else to pay their bill. Our heath care is a trillion dollar system. Not giving anyone to afford health care a 15-20k/yr health plan is not cruel or unusual punishment if you have to foot the bill. Maybe you think only the rich will pay for it WRONG! Someone is going to have to cough up a trillion dollars! If you are making enough to pay taxes you will be the one paying for it. We are still spending over 1 trillion dollars more a year than we take in. When the crap hits the fan who ever is in the US will be in for a world of hurt. The great depression will seem like happy days. You are absolutely right about the "dog in the manger" analogy. 50 attempts within what a 3-4 months to repeal Obamacare! Why can't there be forced moratorium on failed bills? I do remember the Washington state vote on euthanasia. Only people to campaign against it were the companies manufacturing chemotherapy drugs, hospice, the doctors and the Jesus f*****s. It would bite into their income. In India we have social as well as private medical services. We also have medical insurance. The social medicine may not be the greatest but for most part it is available and free and it works! Suicide is also illegal here. However in my religion - Jainism - there is a method of fasting called Santharo. When an individual decides that his time on earth has come to an end he/ she stops all input of nourishment and simply dies. This is NOT considered suicide and is absolutely permitted. DNR is well accepted. So the government is not beholden to the health industry and that is how it should be. Just look up health services in Scandinavian countries. They provide excellent free service without the government going broke.
  
  What you really need is simply to throw away your outdated (read stupid) constitution and write a new one. Switch to parliamentary system as in most of Europe and in India. Big money WILL play a part but people's will be honoured and things will get done.
  
  Back on the subject. We too have anti-piracy laws in place and they are being enforced. At the moment the government has blocked most of the file sharing hosts. However BitTorrent is kind of difficult to control.

  2.10.2013 02:39 #8

• Mez

  You are right again about our hang up with end of life stuff. If you have a living will and enter Hospice you can avoid that crap. You must be terminal to enter their care but if you specify in your living will that you do not want extraordinary means to keep you alive and you are in pain, they will increase the pain drugs to manage the pain until you OD. That is legal in the US.
  
  A far smarter approach for the uninsured would be to have clinics mostly staffed by nurse practitioners. If the problem is too advanced you are referred to a Dr. You can't sue for malpractice for the free care which Malpractice doubles the cost. You can't sue in Canada and I suspect you can't in other manages health care. All Drs are required to spend 10% of their time seeing clinic patients for free. They will need to raise their other rates 10% to cover but I could live with that. I often see a nurse practitioner if I am sick because she has more free time than my primary care Dr at the same office.
  
  Prescriptions would also be heavily discounted and again you couldn't sue the drug companies. Drug companies get sued too easily. I was taking a drug that had a small population of a serious side effect. It was so minor it took over 10 years to even to discover the side effect. It took over a year to verify that the side effect was real. Lawyers were already trying to recruit clients before they were sure the drug is a problem. There is no way this could have shown up on the clinical trials. Pretty soon lawyers will want to sue any time a person dies.
  
  If I was out of work, I wouldn't mind going to a clinic like that. I suspect the cost of a health plan like that would only be about 5K. I would be in favor of something like that.

  2.10.2013 10:31 #9

• pmshah

  Originally posted by Mez: You are right again about our hang up with end of life stuff. If you have a living will and enter Hospice you can avoid that crap. You must be terminal to enter their care but if you specify in your living will that you do not want extraordinary means to keep you alive and you are in pain, they will increase the pain drugs to manage the pain until you OD. That is legal in the US.
  
  A far smarter approach for the uninsured would be to have clinics mostly staffed by nurse practitioners. If the problem is too advanced you are referred to a Dr. You can't sue for malpractice for the free care which Malpractice doubles the cost. You can't sue in Canada and I suspect you can't in other manages health care. All Drs are required to spend 10% of their time seeing clinic patients for free. They will need to raise their other rates 10% to cover but I could live with that. I often see a nurse practitioner if I am sick because she has more free time than my primary care Dr at the same office.
  
  Prescriptions would also be heavily discounted and again you couldn't sue the drug companies. Drug companies get sued too easily. I was taking a drug that had a small population of a serious side effect. It was so minor it took over 10 years to even to discover the side effect. It took over a year to verify that the side effect was real. Lawyers were already trying to recruit clients before they were sure the drug is a problem. There is no way this could have shown up on the clinical trials. Pretty soon lawyers will want to sue any time a person dies.
  
  If I was out of work, I wouldn't mind going to a clinic like that. I suspect the cost of a health plan like that would only be about 5K. I would be in favor of something like that. The whole problem is that every kind of service has become defensive. The doctor prescribes all kinds of unnecessary tests and procedures simply to preclude malpractice suit. I would define malpractice as "action with malicious intent". After all medical practice is a judgement call. There is no malicious intent or negligence. I remember reading about a case, quite a few years ago, where a woman sued the doctor who delivered her more than 25 years prior for her being blind. What the doctor had performed was the best practice at the time. She won millions from a doctor more than 75 years old and had retired a few years earlier. How stupid can the law be ? If you can get around this malpractice stuff your costs would go down 50%.
  
  As an aside, my sister is a retired doctor who worked for Cook County hospital in Chicago. Can you believe she takes home more now then when she was actually working ? That is because she is no longer paying the premium for malpractice insurance. What a wonderful system indeed!
  
  If the US medical system were to replicate that in Cuba, possibly the people would cumulatively save more than 800 billion dollars!

  3.10.2013 03:29 #10

• Mez

  They have to be defensive. I have a brother and brother-in-law who are Drs. One was sued because he was one of 5 Drs in an emergency care. The guy had a million to 1 problem and they didn't run the right tests. He died and his family sued. My BIL never saw the guy or had any reason to see him even though all the DRs were sued. The 4 who saw him settled only the BIL didn't settle. He was found guilty of malpractice even though he never saw him or did anything for him. When you make 8 figures you attract some very skillful lawyers.
  
  Everyone now runs all the possible tests even if they are $10,000 a shot for a million to one case. That is why health care is so expensive when you need 5K of tests you get 25K of tests just to be safe.

  3.10.2013 17:02 #11

• pmshah

  Lawyers too must require an oath similar to Hippocratic oath. "I shall not file frivolous malpractice suit". But then they would all starve ! Frivolous law suits is their bread and butter and cheesecake! Like the DRM related onces.

  4.10.2013 00:01 #12

• Mez

  That will never happen they make too much money. Money is power. They have enough to make the laws they way they want them. The problem is what is frivolous? They will contend someone died and the person at fault should pay. In the beginning the malpractice suits were justified just like the drug law suits. Then they became less and less justified. My BIL has gone to becoming self insured. He has no assets except for a 100,000 CD. He is so well insulated from his assets that the legal work would become prohibitive. They can settle for easy 100,000 but other than that it will be rough going. Because he is not insured he hires his own lawyers which will be better than what the insurance company uses.

  4.10.2013 12:38 #13