Throughout the Pirate Bay trial, which ended last week in a guilty verdict, the defendants posed on multiple occasions that Google could be used to find illegal torrent files – not just the Pirate Bay.

“Bit torrent technology can be used for both legal and illegal means on Pirate Bay in the same way as by Google or MySpace,” said defense lawyer Jonas Nilsson on the closing day of the trial.

The prosecution, and subsequently the judge, didn’t buy the argument and found the Pirate Bay guilty for its crimes against the entertainment industry.

Now someone who is out to prove that Google could be torrent-finding engine has made a simple tweak to a search string and has launched a site called the Pirate Google.

Entering a search term into the text field and hitting the go button will add the switch “filetype:torrent” and send the request to Google. The search engine then results of the specific file type – voila, a torrent search engine using the completely legal Google.

The site makes its intentions clear with a note on its page, which reads:

Please Note: This site is not affiliated with Google, it simply makes use of Google Custom Search to restrict your searches to Torrent files. You can do this with any regular Google search by appending your query with filetype:torrent. This technique can be used for any type of file supported by Google.

The intention of this site is to demonstrate the double standard that was exemplified in the recent Pirate Bay Trial. Sites such as Google offer much the same functionality as The Pirate Bay and other Bit Torrent sites but are not targeted by media conglomerates such as the IFPI as they have the political and legal clout to defend themselves unlike these small independent sites.

This site is created in support of an open, neutral internet accessible and equitable to all regardless of political or financial standing.

Check out the Pirate Google here, or simply educate yourself on the various different ways to customize your Google searches.