Anti-Piracy Group Requests Google to Block 127.0.0.1

According to TorrentFreak, the company Vindex, representing the interests of the Ukrainian TV channel “TRK Ukraina,” sent Google a strange request to remove content from its search results. One of the addresses allegedly violating the rights of TRK Ukraina pointed to 127.0.0.1, meaning the anti-piracy group found the prohibited content on their own systems.

Journalists note that under the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act), Google processes requests to remove about five million URLs every week. In total, the search giant has already removed more than 5 billion links. However, in their attempts to fight piracy, companies often make mistakes and “shoot themselves in the foot.” For example, the Toomics service recently asked Google to remove dangerous URLs from its own website.

A similar situation has now occurred with the request from the Ukrainian anti-piracy company Vindex. The link that allegedly violated TRK Ukraina’s copyright for broadcasting soccer matches pointed to 127.0.0.1:6878/ace/manifest.m3u. In other words, the file with the pirated playlist was found on Vindex’s own computer.

The report suggests that this file could be a playlist for the P2P platform Ace Stream, which is often used for pirated content.

TorrentFreak notes that Vindex should properly configure its bots. The company has not had a flawless reputation in the past: of all the links Vindex requested Google to remove, just over 10% were actually taken down. This time, as expected, Google did not take any action.