"How to Succeed" or How's that Google downlinking working out for you?

Megan: You love specific.
Don: But I have no idea what’s going on out there.
Mad Men, “Lady Lazarus” written by Matthew Weiner

You may have heard that Google announced that it was going to start pushing down in search results links to websites for which Google receives reliable DMCA notices.  Google also acknowledged it is receiving 1 million notices a week for its search engines (that doesn’t count any Google-owned websites, of course) and Google also acknowledged that those million notices are 97% accurate, i.e., credible.  Google’s efforts to date have also been panned by Glenn Peoples in Billboard.

Of course, Google didn’t really specify searches for what.  I think everyone assumed they meant relevant searches, as they are so big into relevance.  Using our old standby relevant test search term of “[Artist Name] torrents” it doesn’t look like much has changed.  (The print gets kind of small on these screenshots, so it might be easier for you to increase your browser zoom to 200%.)

So let’s try clicking on Aimee Mann’s Isohunt link from Google and see what happens.

What do we see?  “Torrent has been censored as required by US Court”.  (Sounds like something YouTube would post on a video blocked by a copyright holder, yes?  And remember that Isohunt is conveniently located across the border in Canada so the “US Court” part has that faint echo of the jingo.)

That’s not quite accurate–the “US Court” didn’t “censor” the torrent, the US Court said that Isohunt should be criminally prosecuted and found the site and its founder liable for massive copyright infringement.  “Censorship” is what the Internet Freedom lobby calls getting caught, apparently.

But never fear, Isohunt is still monetizing the Google search for “Aimee Mann torrents”.  Note that there are several ads on the page.  We hovered over one to bring up the source of the advertisement: CPX Interactive.  Here’s a handy link to the executive team responsible for helping an adjudicated infringer make money off of torrent searches that the infringer acknowledges have been blocked by a US Court.  CPX Interactive is certified by the “IAB” which I guess stands for Internet Advertising Bureau, but is almost always a seal of approval for Insert And Bendover, the favored business model for torrent sites.  In case you were wondering “Where is the board?” they are right here: Michael Sieman, Robert F. Hussey and Andrew B. Rosengard.  Mr. Seiman describes himself as “Also a fan of the arts, Mike has executive produced a feature length film distributed by Lionsgate.”

Really.

But wait, there’s more.  Here’s another ad source on Aimee’s Isohunt page:

This ad is served by Adclick Media (we didn’t really want to find out what the ad was for, sorry.  Feel free to research that on your own.)  Who might they be?  The company’s “About Us” page lists no names but refers you to Multiple Stream Media LLC and that company’s “About Us” describes Adclick Media as the company’s publisher platform and one Abe Cherian as the company’s CEO.

And here’s the popular Carly Rae Jepsen’s torrent search on Google:

As usual with these torrent sites, ads of the type frequently associated with human trafficking are never far away.  Carly Rae Jepsen’s Google link to The Pirate Bay shows up with an ad for Asian women who “desperately want a boyfriend” served by Xertive Media:

Xertive media lists a bunch of “clients” including Adbright (MTP readers will remember Adbright as an early partner of Megavideo at least according to the indictment).  The company’s “About Us” page doesn’t list any actual employees, but it does clearly show Double Click as a traffic source:

Double Click, you know, the company that Google bought a few years ago.  And now owns.  That apparently sends traffic to Xertive who serves ads for Double Click–ads for Asian women demanding boyfriends who smoke tax free by the look of it–on sites that Google gets DMCA notices for.  Or something like that.  And of course, we can’t overlook Xertive’s “Secret Sauce”:

How compelling.  But note this particular element of Xertive’s “Secret Sauce”:

Yes, it appears that there are many “humans” working with Xertive’s customers side by side to track down those desperate Asian women.  These humans also go by another description: witnesses.  Assuming they can be extradited from Israel, where the company apparently is based.  After some deep searching, we were able to find two names associated with Xertive: Gil Rosenblum, CEO & Co-Founder, gil.r@xertivemedia.com, O-ce: +972-3-624-7117 ext 132, and Rami Brusilovsky, Director of Sales rami.brusilovsky@xertivemedia.com, O-ce: +972-3-624-7117 ext 128.

But here’s the really good news from the company’s media kit:

They are picky!!  Thank goodness for that!

And here’s another ad apparently served by those picky fellows on the Madonna catalog from The Pirate Bay:

This time Xertive picked “tax free” cigarettes.  Hmm…you don’t think they might be, oh, I don’t know, counterfeit ciggies?  Nah…there’s no black market for that, right?

Yep, the whole wide and wonderful world of advertising.  Also known as how to succeed in business without really trying.  When Google says they don’t profit from piracy, what they mean is nothing says Internet Freedom like getting away with it.

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See also A New Meaning for Real Time Bidding: An artist’s guide to how the brands and ad agencies are in on advertising supported piracy