philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Report links Google, Yahoo to Internet piracy sites

USC's Annenberg Innovation Lab ranked Google and Yahoo among the top 10 advertising networks that support major piracy sites around the world, based on the lab's analysis of online ads that receive the most copyright infringement notices.

Annenberg's Innovation Lab used as its starting point Google's Transparency Report, which lists the Internet sites receiving the most notices from studios, trade associations and software and game publishers to remove copyrighted works. Whenever an ad appears on one of these leading pirate sites, the lab uses software to obtain the name of the ad network.

The list of ad networks includes Openx, a Pasadena company that was backed by AOL Ventures and describes itself as a leader in digital and mobile ad technology; Google and its advertising platform, DoubleClick; Yahoo and its ad exchange, Right Media; and Quantcast, a San Francisco firm that also places ads on sites owned by such major media companies as NBCUniversal and Viacom.

See the full story here: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-piracy-ads-20130102,0,2960606.story