Ah, yes, you know someone's desperate when you see a bogus DMCA claim like this. Not the first time this happened and definitely won't be the last.

This also demonstrates why it is bad for a law to mandate private entities to do moderation, in this case taking down copyright infringement materials when reported. Google, like basically all big platforms, doesn't care if a claim is fraudulent because the parties impacted cannot hold it accountable — google will just tell you they are themselves victims of the fraudulent claim. And to be fair, they are. But it has to enforce the claims or else lose its safe harbor exemption. This practically allows bad actors to use platforms as their shields, and in the end no one but the victim suffers any consequences for their abuse of the copyright laws.

I think a more sane approach would to require every copyright takedown to require a court order. Granted, the legal system is not perfect, but judges are not incentivized to always side with the supposed copyright holder like online platforms do. They will not be letting someone claiming to be living on a deserted island to file a claim and even when fraud does occur, they will at least know where the claim is actually coming from and be able to punish the fraudster accordingly.

DMCA notices are meant to be submitted "under penalty of perjury", and false notices could in theory result in civil action being taken against those who send them. In practice, neither of these occur even if the sender is a real person, like a record company lawyer lending their name to complaint that are entirely computer generated, or, in this as in so many cases, a completely fabricated identity.

Requiring verification through government ID for takedown notices should be a minimum requirement.

I would have never heard about Negus-Fancey and Wright, but now I have! Streisand at its finest.

Just as there are SEO firms that help companies ascend the rankings, there are "reputation management" firms that erase bad news by publishing new articles & by pushing takedown requests on articles they don't like. As with SEO, Google appears to tacitly encourage this.

It seems obvious that there should be a review process for takedown requests, with penalties for frivolous requests. (Up to and perhaps including lawsuits to cover costs and for the sake of deterrence.) But it's not at all obvious to Google.

The irony is that now this article and the hackers news post are the top google search results for Negus Fancey

This is an extremely common technique against investigative reporting, in particular because certain social media / blogging platforms allow backdating posts [1]. So people just copy your post, claim DMCA, and then take it down quickly after.

1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39355869

Interestingly, the fourth highest ranking link on google for the CEOs name links to a 404: https://www.mailplus.co.uk/tv-guide/tv/394562/crashed-800m-f...

I’m guessing the obvious fakeness of the request is part of it: they’re testing to see if anyone is paying attention. Maybe the author doesn’t care if it gets taken down after four years; maybe they see a super fake request and assume it won’t succeed (or read it as spam). It also costs them nothing and has zero legal liability because there’s nobody to prosecute for such a fake request.

DMCA takedowns should not exist. If it's important, get a court judgement, where the opposing party can present a defense.

If it's not worth a court case, then it must not be very important. Or maybe they have no case.

Already 12 points after just 34 minutes. As noted at the end of the article, streisand effect is alive and well and this article is on its way to the front page.

It seems the BBC documentary link also returns a 404.

https://www.mailplus.co.uk/tv-guide/tv/394562/crashed-800m-f...

Does Google use GEMINI to handle these?

The thing that stands out to me isn't even the fake identity or the fake country. It's that the incentives are completely backwards.

Submitting a bogus DMCA is basically free. Google's cheapest option is to comply first and sort it out later. Meanwhile the person who did nothing wrong has to spend hours (or money) fixing it.

That's a system where every incentive points toward abuse...without knowing what and how this system works behind the scenes, makes me wonder...if it's one of those "delegated to Accenture" processes; like the Google Drive file moderation...

Forbes 30 under 30...

A few months ago I got in touch with Google legal team to remove an ad that wasn't legal. They said that they don't moderate third party content. (???? Bro what?). Except for this bogus excuse, the ad was paid for by a foreign state trying to influence my country's opinion on some non profit organizations. The ad wasn't compliant with the European regulation on political ads (in my opinion). I thought of getting in touch with my communication authority but it's something that went on for days with Google and eventually you're left with no willpower left. Mind you I referenced the points of the law I thought they were breaching (well not just me, this thing went on an italian newspaper before I asked for removal), which is not the most interesting way to spend time

I help run a domain legal case search engine (UDRP.tools) and we run into this type of stuff too. Notices that results are being purged. It's bullshit. We aggregate legal case data and provide analytics about UDRP cases. These aren't private and it's not personal information. It's all coming from publicly documented arbitration decisions. Trying to hide/erase your history in (domain) court on google claiming copyright is a lie. eg. https://lumendatabase.org/notices/27934920

It’s great when someone has such a large online presence that, if they have a problem with a huge company like Google, the company ends up fixing it just for the PR. I doubt they’d respond the same way to an average person.

Google require ID verification for DMCA requests. That would put an end to most of the abuse.

> Why does Google allow fraudulent DMCA notices to be filed with no penalty?

Because Google started the process of removing humans from every loop possible years ago, and these sorts of things are the results of those sorts of things.

> It seems that anyone can file a bogus copyright claim to get an article they don't like removed from Google's search index

This has been known for years. Copyright has been abused for many many years in this sense.

And Google is very well known for their completely absent human-in-the-loop support, so that doesn’t help either.

> Negus-Fancey

I have seen that posh double-barreled surname before: Charles and Cathy Negus-Fancey were the managers of the reclusive cult musician Scott Walker and his interface to the world. Any close relation?

I'm curious how Google notifies people about things like this... do they pull an email out of whois, or your DNS SOA? If there's nothing linking your website to a Google account, it seems like they could just make your website disappear.

I love a good Barba Streisand effect, hope this becomes one!

This is all super interesting, but I can't decide what's the MOST interesting thing:

1. The whole Pollen case (I didn't know about)

2. That Google can be tricked so easily?

3. The whole "industry" that seems to be in place to clean the image of some scumbags in the internet (this whole Ellie Piee from Bouvet Island)

I think the most worrying part is Google's fragility to hurt itself.

> Why does Google allow fraudulent DMCA notices to be filed with no penalty?

Because there is no law that requires a penalty. It's very common on YT, if you are big enough of a company you can file them willy nilly and never get any consequence

Streisand effect is in effect! Nicely done Google and whoever you are Pollen.

How easy is it to challenge these claims?

Steal $20 from a gas station and it is jail time. Instead, steal wages from employees and double-charge customers to make it a civil case.

Ah, the wonders of copyright. A weapon disguised as protection. Like with age verification and "think of the children", copyright claims have "think of the small artists".

> The fake DMCA is made by a fake profile from a country with zero inhabitants. The removal requests by this "Ellie Piee" are made from the country called Bouvet Island, an uninhabited Norwegian dependent territory in the South Atlantic/Southern Ocean near Antarctica. It has zero inhabitants, and is referred to as the "world's most remote island."

this is the most infuriating part, you don't even have to be a person to do this?

The incentives seem backwards. Filing a fraudulent DMCA request appears almost free, while contesting one can require time, legal knowledge, or money. That creates an asymmetric cost where bad actors lose little by trying, but legitimate publishers bear most of the burden. Even a lightweight verification step or a refundable deposit could change that calculus.

[dead]

Should have used a GDPR takedown instead of copyright: in the EU, Google doesn't tell you the identity of the requester, what qas allegedly infringing, or even the affected URl, and there's no ability to challenge. Great stuff. (/s)

if this makes you angry, it should! but there is nothing "one" can do. it is just how the system is set up.