A lot of software used for piracy purposes were probably not necessarily designed to be that way. For example software used to rip CDs to MP3s were probably designed to be for personal use, but people later used it to rip MP3s and distribute them on the web. The same can be said for Kodi, but unfortunately Google doesn’t seem to see it that way.According to a report from TorrentFreak, it appears that Google has decided to remove “Kodi” from its search autocomplete feature as part of its piracy filter. For those unfamiliar, Kodi is a completely legal piece of software that is typically installed on a set-top box and used for streaming. However thanks to third-party addons, it also allowed the software to provide access to pirated media.
While users can still search for Kodi and all things Kodi-related, Google will no longer prompt users in the autocomplete feature. As a result when users start to type “Kodi”, they are being presented with options such as “kodak” or “kodiak”. This is the same when users try to search for illegal content online such as The Pirate Bay in which Google will not offer up an autocomplete for certain terms or names.
In a statement made to TorrentFreak, the XBMC Foundation which operates Kodi states that they are disappointed with Google’s decision. “We are surprised and disappointed to discover Kodi has been removed from autocomplete, as Kodi is perfectly legal open source software.”