Bing Reports They Receive Hundreds Of Thousands Of DMCA Complaints Every Month

Because of its share of the search market, Google is most frequently targeted by copyright holders filing DMCA complaints, but the search giant is not the only one managing requests to remove unlawful links from search results. TorrentFreak reports Bing not only receives a great number of takedown notices monthly, but Microsoft submits DMCA complaints to its own search engine, as well as others.

“Each month, Bing receives DMCA notices from a variety of copyright owners that seek removal of hundreds of thousands of URLs,” said a Microsoft spokesperson. According to TorrentFreak, while Microsoft’s Bing is processing its own collection of DMCA complaints, the software side of the company has requested Google remove approximately 800,000 search results during the past month alone.

TorrentFreak reports, “a quick check reveals that some of the URLs Microsoft wants Google to remove are still accessible on Bing, suggesting that not all search engines receive the same notices.”

Microsoft has gained attention for their DMCA policies after reportedly requesting Google take down links to Microsoft.com. TorrentFreak claims the Microsoft spokesperson admitted the company had made an “honest” mistake, and was “committed to preventing similar errors in the future.”

In the report, TorrentFreak references a recently released research paper published by the Computer Communications Industry Association that argues search engines have little to do with promoting pirated content. “Earlier this week, Microsoft’s awkward dual role as both copyright holder and search engine became apparent in a report released by the tech industry group CCIA.”

As a member of CCIA, TorrentFreak points out that Microsoft finds itself on both sides of the table — with Microsoft the search engine possibly agreeing that demoting links to unlawful content will not solve piracy issues, but Microsoft the software company still actively filing DMCA notices.