WebProNews

At first it seemed like the reports were premature or based on a glitch. After all, if you begin to type variants of ThePirateBay.org into Yahoo's search bar, it suggests exactly that. Depending on what you type, though, Yahoo may not bring back a link to the infamous website.

A search for [thepiratebay.org] brings back results, as does the smushed together [piratebay] query. But search for [piratebay.org] sans "the" or [pirate bay] with a space or [thepiratebay.org downloads], and the actual domain for the site is nowhere to be found.

Theories have erupted as usual, and include bowing to media company pressure, avoiding liability after a harsh piracy smack from China, to taking a sudden moral stance against privacy.

It could be just poor search engineering. Google doesn't seem to have a problem with any of those terms.

Or something else completely.

In response, the Pirate King (what I'm calling the co-founder of Pirate Bay) is reported as saying: “It’s dangerous to trust a company like Yahoo! when they filter the searches. It’s a new China, but this time Yahoo is the dictator. Yahoo should let the governments decide, not themselves. It’s dangerous when companies take the law into their own hands.”

Which doesn't make a whole lot of sense. If governments tell them they get in trouble for participating. He should have stopped talking after "dictator," probably.

Yahoo did not return request for comment.