Fake DMCA notices are manipulating Google search

[joshd2]

Hi, my website in the entertainment category is being attacked and de-indexed by Google through fake DMCA claims. The claims all pretend to be from famous actresses, and are written in poor English, yet Google still complies with them.

I am aware that I can file counter-notices to be reinstated, but Google is complying with the fake claims within a day or 2. While my counter-claims take a week or more to go through. This makes this attack extremely effective at manipulating Google's search results.

What can be done to stop this? Surely this will become an epidemic if Google does not become more discerning about the DMCA notices that they comply with, and give PRIORITY to the counter-notices so that when the fraudulent claims get through they have limited effect.

[tangor]

Play harder. Don't wait. Be persistent. Else the bad actors win, even if only for a week or two.

Nature of the web beast and dealing with content criminals...

Hint, don't use boilerplate text for the challenges. Each reply should be unique ... this clues g in much quicker you are serious.

[JorgeV]

Hello-

I would be curious to know what these DMCA notices are about? You mention actresses, so it sounds like you are publishing photos of them? or videos? If so, are you sure you own the rights of reproduction and diffusion of this material?

[joshd2]

@JorgeV yes I'm sure I have the rights to them. The fake DMCAs claim to be the actresses, are written in poor English, and use some random Instagram links to unrelated photos as "proof" of copyright ownership. Google's DMCA process is so broken it falls for this every time. Not only that but my counter-notices are taking forever to be processed, while the fake DMCAs continue to pile up killing my website.

Google has incentivized this attack. They de-index pages off of clearly bogus claims, take forever to respond to counter-notices, and hit the whole website with a negative SEO penalty for receiving too many DMCAs.

Wake up Google, Jennifer Aniston is not personally filing DMCA notices to 50 URLs in her free time. This is just common sense.

[topaz]

Surprised you're getting them that often. I have about 2 dozen DMCAs (that I sent) that are still pending ...starting since mid January.

[joshd2]

@topaz I think someone at Google is getting excited thinking that famous actresses are filing DMCAs and are processing them insanely fast. They are being approved within 24-48 hours after being filed.

Maybe you should send your next DMCA as Meryl Streep to get it approved immediately /s