Google unintentionally highlights pirate sites in US

San Francisco, July 11 (IANS) While Google has done enough to demote pirate sites in India, the tech giant is reportedly highlighting such platforms in the US.

According to a report in Engadget, the internet firm's search results in the US are unintentionally highlighting popular pirate outlets when they search for "best torrent sites".

Google relies on algorithms to highlight results automatically.

Several music and video industries have criticised the tech giant and accused it of not doing enough to prevent piracy.

"They have routinely argued that Google should outright remove pirate sites from its results, not just demote them," the report added.

Meanwhile, a Google spokesperson has said that the results "do not reflect what we had in mind," and that the company is "looking into" the issue.

"These results are generated algorithmically, but in this particular case, do not reflect what we had in mind for this feature and we are looking into it," the spokesperson was quoted as saying.

Google has been surrounded by several controversies since the start of this year.

In March, Google was criticised for placement of ads on its video hosting platform YouTube.

Several major brands boycotted YouTube and had their ads removed from the platform as they protested the placement of ads which were appearing next to offensive content, including videos posted by terrorism-affiliated groups.