Copyright holders asked Google to remove more than 500,000,000 allegedly infringing links from its search engine in 2016. This nearly equals the number of takedown notices it received for the whole of 2015. Rightsholders see the surge as evidence of a failing system, but Google clearly disagrees.
Copyright holders continue to overload Google with DMCA takedown requests, targeting 'pirate links' in the company's search results. In recent years the number of notices has exploded, breaking record after record.