4.5 million people sign Google’s anti-SOPA petition

PanARMENIAN.Net - Google's homepage shows a thick black censorship stamp across its colorful logo. And, if clicked on, it leads users to a "End Piracy, Not Liberty" petition that asks people to sign-on to protest the two anti-piracy laws to be voted on by Senate and Congress, CNET reports.

"Millions of Americans oppose SOPA and PIPA because these bills would censor the Internet and slow economic growth in the U.S.," the petition reads. "Sign this petition urging Congress to vote NO on PIPA and SOPA before it is too late."

Over the course of the day, millions of people signed onto Google's petition. "The last number we released was at 4:30pm ET," said Google spokesperson Christine Chen. "At that point we were at 4.5 million signatories and counting."

This search-giant is showing that it is in lock step with hundreds of other individuals, groups, and Web sites that either sent out their own petitions, wrote letters to the U.S. government, or went black today in protest of the anti-piracy laws. Among Google's allies are Facebook, AOL, Wikipedia, Amazon, Twitter, and Firefox.

"Fighting online piracy is important," 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."