London Police Placing Anti-Piracy Warning Ads On Illegal Sites 160
mrspoonsi (2955715) writes "The City of London police has started placing banner advertisements on websites believed to be offering pirated content illegally. The messages, which will appear instead of paid-for ads, will ask users to close their web browsers. The move comes as part of a continuing effort to stop piracy sites from earning money through advertising. Police said the ads would make it harder for piracy site owners to make their pages look authentic. "When adverts from well known brands appear on illegal websites, they lend them a look of legitimacy and inadvertently fool consumers into thinking the site is authentic," said Detective Chief Inspector Andy Fyfe from the City of London Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (Pipcu). "This new initiative is another step forward for the unit in tackling IP crime and disrupting criminal profits. "Copyright infringing websites are making huge sums of money though advert placement, therefore disrupting advertising on these sites is crucial and this is why it is an integral part of Operation Creative.""
Re:Hilarious (Score:5, Informative)
"The initiative will make use of technology provided by Project Sunblock - a firm used by major brands to stop adverts appearing alongside questionable content such as pirated material or pornography."
"Neither the police or Project Sunblock [are paying the website in question to display the police message." --
Re:pre-crime (Score:5, Informative)
This police bunch, it is worth noting, is the police force of the "square mile"
Indeed. To clarify, this is specifically the police force of the small area confusingly titled the "City of London" [wikipedia.org] (AKA the "square mile"), i.e. the historic, tiny core of London, long-dominated by financial businesses, and not the police force of London as a whole.
In fact, the rest of London is served by the Metropolitan Police Service [slashdot.org]. Why would The City need its own special police force? Hmm...
which is pretty much run by private corporations, making this essentially a private police force in government-backed livery. It is not strange that it would be acting "proactive" and "innovative" and whatnot in furtherance of private corporate goals.
This article [theguardian.com] may also be of interest.
Surely Adblock and Noscript will... (Score:3, Informative)
...take care of this nuisance. Who in their right mind allows third party sites to run in their browser anyway?
Misleading title (Score:4, Informative)
Hey editors, the City of London Police is NOT the same as the London Police. To get a good understanding of the difference, please view The (secret) City of London, Part 1: History [youtube.com] (less than 5 min) and then The (secret) City of London, Part 2: Government [youtube.com] (less than 6 min).
JigJag
Re:Might fine police work there, Lou! (Score:4, Informative)
No one should confuse The City of London police [wikipedia.org] for an actual police force as most people imagine them, either. They are a territorial force responsible for a tiny area of Greater London as a whole that measuring a little over square mile and consists of mostly financial institutions and only a few thousand actual residents. Still, owing to their location in The City, they have developed quite a reputation for fraud investigations and also incorporate a division dealing with Intellectual Property [wikipedia.org], so other than the jurisdictional issues of interfering with websites (or at least the ads displayed on them) that are most likely hosted outside The City they actually do have the means and backing to look into this kind of thing.
Re:City of London Police =/= British Police (Score:4, Informative)
Apparently you failed to read the section on elections in the City of London:
So, yes, they are governed by corporations.
Re:pre-crime (Score:3, Informative)
Wow so wrong it hurts.
Please check the official documents - the City of London Police force is run by the voting wards .... 21 of 25 wards are run by corporate voters .... 4 of 21 wards are run by actual residents. Oh and the 32,000 corporate voters out number the 7,000 residential voters.
PS In the UK it is the only local council that has a dedicated officer in parliment to remind parliment not to infringe upon the City of London and the only local council since 1969 that still allows for corporations to be considered voters.