The Pirate Bay and other pirate sites risk a "repeat offender" ban from Google, but not over copyright infringements. Google has updated its safe browsing service, used by modern browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, which will now block websites for a minimum of thirty days after being repeatedly marked as harmful.

Google regularly checks websites for malicious and harmful content to help people avoid running into dangerous situations.

This safe browsing service is used by modern browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, which throw up a warning before people attempt to visit risky sites.

Frequent users of The Pirate Bay are familiar with these ominous warning signs. The site has been flagged several times over the past few years and twice in recent weeks.

This issue is more common on pirate sites as these only have access to lower-tier advertising agencies, some of which have minimal screening procedures for ads.

Thus far the browser roadblocks have always disappeared after the rogue advertisements have gone away, but according to Google, the red flag can become more permanent in the future.

The company has announced that it has implemented a “repeat offender” policy to address sites that frequently run into these problems. This is to prevent sites from circumventing the security measures by turning malicious content off and on.

“Over time, we’ve observed that a small number of websites will cease harming users for long enough to have the warnings removed, and will then revert to harmful activity,” Google’s Safe Browsing Team writes.

“Safe Browsing will begin to classify these types of sites as ‘Repeat Offenders’,” the announcement adds.

Chrome’s Pirate Bay block



The new policy will only affect sites that link to harmful content. So-called ‘hacked’ sites, which Google also warns about, are not part of these measures.

Under these new rules, The Pirate Bay is also at risk of being benched for 30 days if it’s caught more than once in a short period of time. The same applies to all other sites on the Internet of course.

TorrentFreak asked Google what the timeframe is for sites to get a repeat offender classification, but the company hasn’t yet replied.

The Pirate Bay team isn’t really concerned about the new policy. They stress that in their case, the issue lies with third-party advertisers which they have no control over.

“Tell Google to get an ad blocker?” TPB’s plc365 notes.

“Seriously though, there aren’t a lot of ad agencies willing to work with sharing sites. The ones we have access to aren’t very concerned with what they put up, and don’t exactly give us a preview of what their clients send them before they air it.”

The TPB team doesn’t see their site as a repeat offender. However, for the ad agencies there’s a lot at stake so perhaps this measure will trigger them to be more vigilant.

“It’s infrequent enough, I don’t believe TPB will be flagged as a Repeat Offender. Ultimately, that will cost the ad agencies dearly if all their clients were permanently denied visitors.

“So maybe in the long run those agencies with a tendency to serve malicious ads will better screen their clients,” plc365 adds.

Even if The Pirate Bay or other pirate sites get banned for thirty days, it’s not the end of the world. People can easily disable the malware checking option in their browser to regain direct access. That is, if they are willing to take the risk.