DMCA takedown Notice removed high ranking URLs from Google

What do I do?

[rdscx]

As a long time reader (since 200X) of this forum, but not a member, I finally came to an issue I kind of need to address here, so here it is.

Saturday I received a DMCA takedown notice for 44 urls of my site. It's a sports site (sports betting ads) I rely on sports matches to get some traffic from Google. Last update (26 May) pushed the site up a bit.

The DMCA was carefully done for all the upcoming important matches of next week. The claim was simple: livestreaming of audio/visual content copyrighted by UEFA. Of course, there's no such thing on my site as we deal with statistics. I wish I had more time to update all matches with official video highlights from official YT channels, but well... the irony. The outbound links are also 100% legit (two big european betting sites) and it was like that from the beginning.

So my traffic for next week is gone because of this DMCA removal. I've read about delisting of Moz.com homepage and other things like that, but it was solved in less than a day because, well, it's moz.com, not anybody.com.

I am more than happy to file a counter-notice but I need to fill out my personal data and, to be honest, the DMCA seems to be fake. I googled the company, absolutely no results. They have filled 3 DMCA requests: two on my site and one back in March, against a legit company from Germany which deals also with copyright protection - how ironic is that?

What should I do? Fill up my personal data and send it to this probably fake company (I understand they will receive my data once I fill up the form)? I get nothing on them, no contact, email, website, address, nothing - just a name.

Seems awfully unfair to disclose my business identity to someone which doesn't disclose theirs - and even if they did, how do I know it's not fake?

I have no issues contacting UEFA and let them know about this case, but I am not sure they care too much. Again, there's a big ZERO possibility of me doing something illegal and a 99% chance of this being a fake takedown. I still give 1% chances of being a bot action by mistake.

Even if I submit today, it will take 10 days to have the results back in and in the meantime I am losing all the traffic anyway.

What would you do?

[Brett_Tabke]

First - welcome out of lurk mode ;-)

Gaming DMCA requests is the new Negative SEO.

Yep, if you want those URLs back, you are going to have to file a response - a put back notice. I have heard that if you use the FAX number Google provides, you will get a much faster response.

[rdscx]

So the FAX works faster than emails? I hope it's not a joke :)) Thanks for the tip!

What is unfair here is that I have no information about the entity which sent the DMCA request, but the counter notice forces me to give mine to them and, probably, receive nothing in return? I will be happy to send it to Google (they already have it from my adsense account) and Google should not disclose it with that entity unless it's a legit company.

Google just take DMCA for anyone capable of filling out a form (that is shocking) and then proceeds to remove results from search? Is this how it really works?

The most chilling question is: what to do if I will be harassed by these DMCA takedowns each week? I can't recover quick enough (10 days), so I'll be slowly losing all my traffic. This is the real nightmare and if someone who has gone through this can elaborate, it will be really helpful. Thank you!

[RedBar]

On a personal note I would not be divulging anything to anyone until I were absolutely certain they were 100% legit therefore my immediate response to them would precisely be that, prove who you are.

I am correct this takedown did not come from Google? In my experience G is always very clear when they issue anything.

[rdscx]

Here's the takedown notice.
[i.imgur.com...]

That's all I know.

Now, please take note that I found out about it from my Adsense Policy account. My Google search console did not send me any notification about it as of now. But when I search each url I get the notice that it was removed from the index (besides being demonetised in Adsene).

It looks similar to this story:
[seroundtable.com...]

And I have the same questions as the guy who got hit, but unfortunately I have no friends at Google....

Our site provides links to legit live streams (bet365 in UK or fubotv in the US) and for certain countries we use the "live stream" keyword to redirect people to betting (again, the betting site doesn't have any streams on it).

Besides the fact that our site itself doesn't show any streams, we have the outgoing links which are 100% legal. There's no point in arguing if it's legal or not. I know for sure it's legal as this was the business model.

It might be a "bot mistake" and a real company who sent the DMCA, but it's only me that I got hit. That makes me suspicious. Targeting also pages that were made for future events (next week) seems also malicious, in the way that we had good rankings for those matches and their keywords.

[RedBar]

Since this is supposedly on behalf of UEFA a quick search reveals that they have their own Head of Event Legal Services on Linkedin ... I would be contacting her to clarify if this is genuine or not. The info is there so use it :-)

[rdscx]

Yes, that's a good point to start. However:
[friendmts.com...]

This doesn't exclude the fact that they might be working with various other providers.

[RedBar]

They explicitly state "Provide access to illegal line streaming of UEFA matches."

If you do not do this surely this can be clarified very quickly?

[rdscx]

I never did it for any league since the inception of the site. That's why I am so enraged at the moment for the unfairness of the claim.

[RedBar]

I see Friend MTS has an email address, I'd CC them in too, I find CCing other genuine contacts has a quicker response.

[rdscx]

Since at least the beginning of 2022, all takedown notices on behalf of UEFA were done by Friend MTS - I checked the Lumen Database.

Except for the last two notices which were made against me by this entity nobody knows about it.

I can pretty much safely say it's an attack, and a big Google flaw in their system of accepting/rejecting these claims. Either way, I've submitted a carefully made counter-notification with real data, even though I suspect there's fake data on the other end. Disclosing enough for them to "sue" me, but not enough to get too much info about the business. From what I understand, you must fill out a counter-notification anyway.

The next big worry is to which extent these people are going to bother me with DMCA and what can I do stop them?

[Brett_Tabke]

You in Europe or US?

[martinibuster]

If you have a search console account then Google will send you a notice there. [support.google.com]

The DMCA protects publishers from false accusations by providing a way to challenge the accusation. If the DMCA was sent to Google and Google notified you then you send the response to Google and Google will decide whether to release your site back into the SERPs.

If the DMCA was sent to your host then you contact the host and the host will decide whether to suspend the hosting account, etc.

Do you inform users before acting on a request?
When feasible and legal to do so, we try our best to notify users to give them an opportunity to submit a counter-notice in response to copyright removal requests. For Search, it is extremely difficult to provide meaningful notice to website owners whose pages have been identified in copyright removal requests, because we do not necessarily know their identities or have an effective means of contacting them. If users have registered with our Search Console as website owners, we will notify them there. We also share a copy of qualifying copyright removal requests with the public site Lumen, where a website owners may inspect it as well.

[rdscx]

>You in Europe or US?

I'm in Europe.

>The DMCA protects publishers from false accusations by providing a way to challenge the accusation. If the DMCA was sent to Google and Google >notified you then you send the response to Google and Google will decide whether to release your site back into the SERPs.
>If the DMCA was sent to your host then you contact the host and the host will decide whether to suspend the hosting account, etc.

DMCA was sent to Google in order to delist some carefully selected pages. I already sent a counter-notification. But at this point I still don't have any information about the sender (apart from a company name with no match on google or bing). I already posted the DMCA notice screenshot on this thread.

My host is fine, as it should be. It's one of Europe's top hosts. There's nothing illegal on my site.

The takedown delisted 48 pages, an EXACT match for 80% of this week's traffic (upcoming traffic starting from today). All these 44 pages were matches that will be played in the next 7 days or so. When my counter-notice goes through, it will take 10 days (as per google) to reinstate my pages, at which point I kind of don't need them anymore since my traffic on these pages is gone (no more interest in them).

I've posted on Google Support Forums, and the only advice I got there is to "talk to a lawyer" if I don't want to disclose my personal data. So this means that each time Google makes a mess, I should open my wallet.

However, I will be more than interested to talk to a lawyer if I could see who is sending the request, as I gave my personal details already in the counter-notification and received only an email from google with "thank you, we'll get back to you".

What if I want to sue back or at least make some sort of legal complaint for abuse/loss of income? How can I reach this "entity" which doesn't seem to exist? In the end, who will compensate for all the time spent on forums, lost money etc? Nobody.

And another thing. My urls were taken off the Google index on Saturday, but I received the notice in GSC today (and it's just for 4 urls). I am still waiting for the second notice for the rest of the urls (44). There are 2 takedown notices.

How I found out sooner about them? Because I also serve Adsense on that site and the pages were demonetised because of DMCA complaints. I've figured if they have some sort of "copyright" penalty, this should also apply to Google search. And I was right, the takedown notices were already on Lumen by it took 2 more days to get the first notification in GSC.

[RedBar]

Good luck rdscx, this is way above anything I have ever dealt with. We don't give legal advice here however your situation should be concerning to everyone who tries to do everything by the book but then has the rug pulled from underneath them seemingly with zero notice.

[rdscx]

Thanks, man. I will update here once I have something new. All counter-notifications are sent, I hope Google will reinstate my pages as soon as possible and also give me access to at least some contact data of the "sender" (Costolo Legal). If the entity is real and it was a mistake, ok, I can understand that but I need to talk to them.

Yes, you can be taken down by error by a DMCA, but it's worse when it's a fake one - like I suspect here.

[Dimitri]

Peace first, then...

meta title : XXX vs YYY live stream, score and H2H

page content : You can follow XXX - YYY live score and live stream here on ZZZ
(ZZZ being your site)

So, indeed you are not streaming the games, or linking to unauthorized streaming/content, but you deployed all kind of tricks to let people believe "you" are offering a live streaming.

Also, you are showing a look-a-like (fake) media player, which is inviting people to "Register on the website" to access the live streaming and "Watch Now". This is only below, that, one "might" understand that "the website" refers to an external betting site, the "ad" mention being made as discreet as possible #ad, outside of the look-a-like media player box.

So I agree that you are making nothing "illegal", but you are also doing everything to look like providing this live streaming yourself, and mislead people to attract them to your site. Then, this is not surprising that any kind of legal entity get mislead too.

These entities might not even visit your (our) pages, they run a google search, certainly automated, they see in the results : "XXX vs YYY live stream, score and H2H- You can follow XXX - YYY live score and live stream here on ZZZ", period. They assume that your claim of "what looks like" offering a live streaming is right. They check their list of authorized sites, do not see your, so they fill a DMCA (which is certainly automated too).

I know that this is a series of interpretations, and assumptions, but when things are not clear, it leaves the door opened to all kind of troubles, and let competitors exploit it.

Now, I am not saying that this is a legit DMCA, or not, it might be fake, abusive, etc... I am just giving my point of view about playing in a gray area, especially in today's World.

[rdscx]

Dimitri, I'm glad you came to the conclusion that is nothing illegal there. That pretty much solves the core problem and the rest of your post is kind of redundant...

For your information, we do offer links to real (and legal) live streaming provided by bet365. If you're from EU, you've probably heard of them. In the US, we offer links for live streaming provided by fuboTV. I do agree some links (for certain countries) are indeed misleading (ie they don't go to a live streaming provider). But overall, for the vast majority of my audience and traffic, I really provide links to live streaming and people are actually using them! And everything is legal. Is this the grey area you are talking about?

I am selling legal live streams, but I should not use "live streaming" keywords in my pages? Not sure about that.

You're selling/promoting something? Please don't use any related keywords. Thank you!

Ok, getting back. Your conclusion is that even though I am doing nothing illegal, I should expect to be a victim of mistaken/fake DMCA because of the keywords.

I'm sorry, man, you're totally missing the point here. This DMCA was aimed solely at my site from a list of top 10 results which were (almost) all using the same keywords and promotion methods to sell either bets or live streams.

The idea of this thread is to point out to webmasters that anyone (being a legit company or not) can bring you down even if, as you mentioned, I am not doing anything illegal.

Edit: I am still waiting for the second DMCA notice in GSC (for the rest of 44 urls). It's been 3 days now...

[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 2:26 pm (utc) on Jun 8, 2022]
[edit reason] (rdscx approved minor edit) [/edit]

[rdscx]

In the meantime, maybe some of you will be interested to know Google will not disclose any data regarding a fraudulent DMCA complaint.

Bungie vs Fake DMCA Notices: Google Refuses to Hand Over User Data
[torrentfreak.com...]

How it all started
[pcgamer.com...]

The more I dig into this, the scarier it looks.

In my case, things are pretty much like this:

1. DMCA notices are sent by either a legal company which made a mistake or by a fake company. Most likely, it's a fake.
2. I am forced to disclose real data in order to get back into google search, but I'm receiving no data about the sender.
3. Even if I want to get the data of the sender to fight back, I can't (Google will not hand it over to me, and the DMCA notice points to a "name", which has no match).
4. I can't held Google accountable for any loss since they owe nothing to me. We don't have a contract for appearing in the search. If their filtering system has a flaw, that system is not accountable.

What is scary
Anyone can send fake DMCA and get someone delisted, because Google doesn't have enough manpower to manually check each notice/page and it is in their own interest to take down allegedly infringing content in order to stay safe. It's more like a "bot game" where you win or lose.

Your site might take a forced break of 10-14 days, and when you get back you might get another 10-14 days. This can go on forever unless Google has a flag in the system where a fake DMCA for a site triggers a real, manual review on the next DMCA.

[RedBar]

I may have missed this, how old is your site ?

[rdscx]

18 months (January 2021). We started out with a .me domain but switched to .com after 8 months. All proper redirects are in place so you might add these 8 months to the 18 of the .com domain, if that matters.

[Dimitri]

> I am selling legal live streams, but I should not use "live streaming" keywords in my pages? Not sure about that.

You are not selling legal live stream. You show disguised affiliate links to a betting site, which is paying you a commission if someone register (and certainly place bets too). This is not selling, just saying.

[rdscx]

It depends. For certain countries we do send the user to a betting site which has no streaming of events. But for the big markets, we either send the user to a betting company that has live streaming of the event(s) or we send it to fuboTv (which is clearly "selling a stream").

How is this relevant to fake DMCAs? I thought we are discussing if it's legal/illegal, how to prevent abuse of DMCA etc. Not our monetising system.

[edited by: rdscx at 1:18 pm (utc) on Jun 7, 2022]

[Brett_Tabke]

Good luck with it RDSCX. I know this space has tons of sites that walk the fine line - many over it - so it doesn't surprise me that someone came after you. This type of DMCA take down requests cast a very wide net.

[rdscx]

Thanks, Brett! As I said, I will post here an update of the counter-notification process. We'll tweak the API a bit in order to get back into search sooner, but I still need to fix my Adsense account, as the copyright strikes firstly arrived there. I hope counter-notifications will be soon sorted out.

Yes, online gambling (even for sports) is not the easiest niche in terms of what the competition might do to get back to you. It looks like I need to get used to this type of harassment.

Still waiting for the second notice of DMCA in my GSC account...

[RedBar]

All proper redirects are in place so you might add these 8 months to the 18 of the .com domain, if that matters.

Just wondered, that's all. I assume when you first started that you were below everyone else's radar and now, if you're known and earning good money, you're above the radar and come to the attention of various others.

At the end of the day G AdWords has to protect their advertisers first and does tend to shoot first and ask questions later!

Keep us informed, it's an interesting situation.

[Kratos]

At the end of the day G AdWords has to protect their advertisers first and does tend to shoot first and ask questions later!

Wait, how's this guy getting away with having Adsense on a betting affiliate website?

Or did I read wrong?

[Brett_Tabke]

@Kratos If AdWords are present on a SERP, the rankings on that SERP get 100x the attention that those without adwords get.

[rdscx]

@Kratos - it is possible and it's done even by very large companies. After all, I followed their example. It seems like it's up to the advertiser to decide whether it wants to be on a sports betting site or not.

Often, on very large websites, you will see Google serving sports betting ads.

Here's an example on a 2.5M+ users website, 15 years old or more. [i.imgur.com...]

I got a Portuguese ip via VPN, you can see two Adsense ads serving sports betting. Portugal being a closed market (almost), brands are competing on that site through Adsense.

[JesterMagic]

Following. Interesting issue.

Once your site ranks well in Google your site will become a target. At least with a DMCA request you can fight it. Other forms of attacks on a websites rankings like negative SEO are more difficult to fight.

Google moves real slow and is not your friend. Especially with a niche like online betting that is filled with a lot of questionable behavior by website owners.