Google takedown requests mushroom as copyright holders play whack-a-mole

More than 65m requests flood into Choc Factory in past month

Google received more than 65 million removal requests for search results containing alleged copyright violations in the space of the past month.

The takedown demands have come from the usual suspects, including the British Recorded Music Industry (BPI), which asked Google to remove 7.1 million URLs as of mid-November this year.

The ad giant said 5,492 copyright owners had submitted the requests relating to 72,207 specified domains.

To date, the BPI has requested the removal of 179,764,920 URLs from Google's search results, many of which relate to the same repeat-offending domains.

Its monthly takedown requests have doubled since May 2012.

All of which suggests that it remains incredibly easy for users to find pirated material via the ad giant's search engine. Yes, Google is your friend. ®