Google’s petition against the US’s proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) that it said "would censor the internet and slow economic growth in the U.S." received millions in signatures.
"The last number we released was at 4:30pm ET at that point we were at 4.5 million signatories and counting," said Google spokesperson Christine Chen.
Google wrote on the petition:
"The most effective way to shut down pirate websites is through targeted legislation that cuts off their funding. There’s no need to make American social networks, blogs and search engines censor the Internet or undermine the existing laws that have enabled the Web to thrive, creating millions of U.S. jobs."
Google took a very public stance against the SOPA and PIPA act and Google Chief Legal Officer, David Drummond even posted in the company’s blog:
"Because we think there’s a good way forward that doesn’t cause collateral damage to the web, we’re joining Wikipedia, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, Mozilla and other Internet companies in speaking out against SOPA and PIPA. And we’re asking you to sign a petition and join the millions who have already reached out to Congress through phone calls, letters and petitions asking them to rethink SOPA and PIPA."
The English version of Wikipedia was not accessible for 25 hours on Wednesday in protest over the SOPA and PIPA acts.
Wikipedia’s campaign against SOPA and PIPA also saw significant results. Co-founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales announced on twitter that now 35 senators said they were against PIPA up from 5 last week.
Wales also said that the Wikipedia page explaining about the blackout had been viewed 162 million times when a Wikipedia page viewing this time of year would only have 30 million views.
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