Google criticised for copyright protection stance

28th September 2007

A prominent US ethics watchdog has criticised Google, claiming the search engine does not do enough to protect the interests of copyright holders.

In a letter to a number of regulatory and judicial bodies in America, the National Legal and Policy Centre (NLPC) says that Google needs to have its copyright controls investigated.

One of the letters was sent to Congress.

Google has countered by claiming it removes copyrighted content as soon as it is asked to by the appropriate persons.

But the NLPC says that this is not good enough and opines that the search engine "clearly has the technological and economic wherewithal to do something more" in terms of preventing breaches.

Significantly, the criticisms focus on the actual Google site and not on the Google-owned video sharing site YouTube.

YouTube has had its share of copyright rows in the past, including a prolonged dispute with US media giant Viacom.