New York - Media firms including News Corp., Viacom, Sony, NBC Universal, Disney and Time Warner have accused Google of enabling piracy by selling keyword ads for sites that offered illegal movie downloads, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

Google was not named as a defendant in the companies' lawsuit against two operators of the websites -- EasyDownloadCenter.com and TheDownloadPalace.com -- who have voluntarily taken them offline.

The website operators said in response to the lawsuit that Google employees suggested they purchase keywords like "pirated" and "bootleg movie download" for the sites.

The Journal reported that Google held negotiations with the media firms on Friday, and said that it would remove certain objectionable ads and refrain from selling ads to sites that sell pirated content.

The company also promised to train its ad salespeople not to offer such ads in the future, and further said it will create a list of approved advertisers.

"We prohibit advertisers from using our advertising program to promote the sale of copyright infringing materials. We are continually improving our systems to screen out ads that violate these policies," Google told CNET News.com.

Related Links:

http://tinyurl.com/3dchha (Reuters)

http://tinyurl.com/24jsf4 (CNET)