Google has issued a new report showing that it receives more than 1.2 million takedown requests for search results each month. The chief complainer, by a wide margin, is Microsoft, who claimed a copyright violation on over 500,000 of those infringing search results. But using Google's new transparency tool, which lets anyone sift through the takedown requests, Techdirt discovered that links to pirated Xbox content, which Google took down at Microsoft's request, remain alive and well on Microsoft's Bing search engine.

Over the last year the number of takedown notices sent to Google each week has practically doubled. The number one organization demanding takedowns from Google is one of Microsoft's neighbors in Redmond, Washington, a firm called Marketly, which is also employed by Microsoft. Marketly sent takedowns to Google asking it to remove a number of links from its search results that let back to XBox 360 games. Techdirt followed the link for one takedown in particular, a game called DiRT 2, and found that it was gone from Google, but still led to a pirated copy on Bing.

Why is Microsoft asking Google to clean up dirty links when it can't keep its own house in order?The answer could be that, given the sheer size and complexity of sifting through and reporting hundreds of thousands of offending URLs each month, for now Microsoft is focusing on the clear leader in search. Or it could simply be a effective way for Microsoft to needle its biggest competitor.