Earlier this year, Microsoft France filed a Digital Millennium Copyright Act notice to Google requesting for the takedown of site pages allegedly infringing their products.  Microsoft, like other copyright holders, use an automated system to identify infringing sites.  Microsoft claims that the takedown list aims to prevent the unauthorized distribution of the Windows 8 Beta software.

Unfortunately, these automated tools aren’t perfect, and oftentimes innocent pages are sent to be taken down.  And that’s the case with Microsoft’s latest DMCA filing, as it included the request to take down pages from BBC, The Huffington Post, TechCrunch, BuzzFeed, Wikipedia, AMC Theaters, Government sites and more.

Of the takedown list, half of them weren’t even pertaining to Microsoft or Windows 8, but it can be noted that they were referencing the number 45.  As for the relation of the number 45 to Windows 8 or Microsoft, remains a mystery.

Though Google was sent the takedown list, not everything on it was taken down and users can still find the BBC news links. It seems Google keeps a log of white-listed sites and ignores takedown notices.  But Real Clear Politics and AMC Theatres weren’t so lucky.

This is not the first time Microsoft filed a questionable DMCA takedown, as they previously filed to takedown a Spotify URL and on several occasions asked Google to censor their own search engine, Bing.

What’s troubling is, more and more right holders are filing DMCA claims and these can’t be easily verified so a lot of innocent sites are taken down or will be taken down as the weeks progress.  Right holders should be held accountable for sending takedown notices for sites that aren’t actually infringing, and clearly, they should improve the automated tools they are using to identify infringing sites.  Perhaps verifying take down notices before they’re sent out would be a good idea, too.