FOIA Uncovers Part of U.K. Shadow Regulation on Search Engines and Copyright

Last month we wrote about the adoption of a new secret agreement between copyright holders and the major search engines, brokered by the U.K. Intellectual Property Office, aimed at making websites associated with copyright infringement less visible in search results. Since the agreement wasn’t publicly available, we simultaneously issued a request under the U.K.’s Freedom of Information Act , asking for a copy of the text.