Last week a flurry of articles popped up showing that Microsoft had sent improper DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) take down notices claiming infringing material on sites that criticized their new Metro (or not Metro) UI. The move appeared to be done in order to directly harm these sites search rating. Some of the sites affected were Betanews.com, ngohq.com, gHacks.com, Hardware Canuck.com Technize.com and more. It was a very unusual move, but one that we predicted after Google changed their search algorithm to reduce site’s search rankings after “valid” DMCA takedown notices were received.

Wow, the rumors have started early; it seems that some people are trying to push the “Facebook is going to charge you” rumor again after the social networking company tried out a new “pay to promote” feature. This compiled with some recent purchases (and a change in the “data use” policy) has gotten the gears turning. The problem is that we highly doubt they will ever do that after considering there are much better ways to monetize their users.