Is Google the internet police?

Follow the money

For years, Google's answer to piracy complaints was to tinker with its search results — demoting sites flagged for hosting pirated films, music, and books. In early 2013, the company was reportedly considering something more radical: cutting off the money instead. Executives were discussing plans to block funding to websites largely dedicated to piracy, and to sites that ignored legal challenges — for example, by operating offshore.

The logic was simple. Chasing individual links is whack-a-mole; draining the revenue is killing the root. If it went ahead, Google wouldn't even be the first to try it. In 2011, Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal had cut off donations to WikiLeaks after the site published classified material — a blockade that demonstrated how effectively a funding cutoff could cripple a website.

Who wanted it, who feared it

The idea was already popular with the book, music, film, and television industries, which had long demanded tougher anti-piracy measures. But it was the first time Google itself had embraced the approach so openly — a notable shift for a company that had spent years fighting Hollywood and the record labels over how far intermediaries should go in policing content.

Google was said to be wary of unintended consequences: a funding-blockade mechanism could be weaponized by companies to stamp out competitors. Details were still being thrashed out, with possible action as early as that spring. A Mastercard spokesman offered only the standard line about taking online safety seriously; Visa declined to comment, and PayPal didn't respond.

Why it mattered

The debate captured a turning point in internet governance: the question was no longer whether private companies could police the web — the WikiLeaks blockade had proved they could — but whether they should, and who gets to decide which sites deserve to exist. Google stepping into that role, as both the web's front door and its ad broker, would have made it the closest thing the internet had to a police force.

Archive summary, February 2013, of the Telegraph's original report "Google looks to cut funds to illegal sites." (The Telegraph's original URL no longer resolves to the article.)