Google gets 2.2 million piracy takedown requests every day

The number of piracy takedown requests sent to Google is continuing to balloon: The search giant now receives around 2.2 million demands every single day.

According to new data published by Google on Sunday as part of its Transparency Report, it received 66,318,159 "URLs Requested to be removed" over the last month. (We first saw the data on TorrentFreak.)

If Google agrees to a request - because it decides that the website does indeed contain copyright-infringing content - then it removes the URL from its search results. The website itself is not affected, although it will lose an important source of traffic.

The number of takedown requests sent to Google has been steadily gathering pace over the last several years. In November 2012, it received around 2.2 million requests in a week. In 2015, that has grown to 2.2 million per day - or 92,000 per hour, or 1,500 per minute.

Here's a graph from Google's Transparency Report showing that rapid growth:

The 66 million URLs requested for removal over the last month target 71,000 specific websites, and come from 5,500 copyright holders and 2,500 reporting organisations, Google says.

Takedown requests aren't the only way Google tries to fight piracy. Its search algorithm also penalises the ranking of websites that host copyright-infringing content - making them appear lower in search results and depriving them of traffic.