False DMCA Takedowns Got Site Delisted From Google, Lender Says

Hard money lender Source Capital Funding Inc. claimed that mortgage broker Barrett Financial Group LLC employed a digital marketing agency to send fraudulent copyright takedown requests to Google, which delisted Source Capital’s webpage from search results, a lawsuit in San Diego federal court said.

Source Capital, which provides private loans secured by real estate, said the Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown requests by the agency Search Control were “knowingly false and merely part of a plan concocted” by Barrett Financial to damage Source Capital’s marketing and reduce traffic to its website. The DMCA’s notice-and-takedown process prohibits filing false DMCA ...