For the first time, global tech giants Google and Microsoft have agreed to tighten up their search engines as part of a crackdown on piracy sites illegally streaming events and films.
Google and Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, have signed up to a voluntary code of practice and will ensure offending websites are demoted in their search results.
The entertainment industry reached the agreement with the tech giants after talks brokered by the U.K. government.
The initiative will run in parallel with existing anti-piracy measures. The code, the first of its kind in the world, is expected to be in operation by the middle of this year, BBC reported.
U.K. Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation Jo Johnson said that the search engines’ “relationships with our world leading creative industries needs to be collaborative”.
“It is essential that (consumers) are presented with links to legitimate websites and services, and not provided with links to pirate sites,” he said.
Google has indicated that the effort would provide a way to check that its existing efforts were effective, rather than committing it to adding new measures. “Google has been an active partner for many years in the fight against piracy online. We remain committed and look forward to further partnership with rights holders,” a spokesperson said.
Besides demoting copyright infringing sites, search engine autocomplete functions, a time-saving feature that suggests what users may be looking for, are also expected to remove terms that may lead to pirated websites.
