Takedown trail raises questions around who’s behind hundreds of Google copyright complaints

A curious email from Google has led to a fresh allegation in an increasingly complicated dispute over Sportradar, the sports-data company whose shares plunged after short sellers accused it of profiting from illegal gambling in April this year.

The new claim comes from Active8Insights, a specialist publication and data provider covering activist short selling.

In its investigation, Betting on a Takedown, Active8Insights claimed it uncovered evidence that an obscure web and SEO contractor has been filing large numbers of copyright complaints – DMCA notices – in an apparent effort to make reporting about global operator 1xBet harder to find online, while also burying links between it and Sportradar.

But as both parties have denied any involvement in the filings to iGB, questions remain around who is behind the stream of takedown notices sent to a handful of online publications.

Active8Insights traced the complaint through Google’s notice system and the Lumen Database, which archives takedown requests, and says it found a much wider pattern.

“We randomly got pulled into this situation,” an Active8Insights spokesperson told iGB.

 “On 5 August we received an email from Google that said something along the lines of, ‘Hey, you apparently infringed on copyright, and we are removing your link from our search index.’”

1xBet has faced criticism in a number of jurisdictions amid claims it has operated in illegal or grey markets.

But the company has since embarked on a repositioning journey to prove that it is putting “greater emphasis on structured regulatory participation,” strategic advisor for 1xBet Simon Westbury told iGB in April.

Part of its new direction has involved doubling down on growing its portfolio of local licences in regulated markets around the globe. For example, in February, 1xBet announced it had acquired a licence to operate in Brazil’s regulated market.

Both parties deny any involvement

Westbury denies any suggestion that 1xBet is somehow involved in a takedown operation.

He told iGB: “Activ8Insights is clear about the limits of what it can establish and does not allege that 1xBet was responsible for the activity described. 1xBet can confirm that it had no involvement in or knowledge of that notice. We have no further comment.”

Sportradar has also denied any involvement. A spokesperson for the data provider told iGB it “did not file or commission the notice in question and has never sought the removal of such press coverage from search results”.

“Sportradar has no relationship with, or knowledge of, anyone filing copyright takedown notices under the name Alex Gramm,” it added.

In an emailed statement to iGB the Sportradar spokesperson added: “Sportradar takes its compliance obligations and its reputation seriously and we will pursue every legal avenue available to us to protect both. Following the short seller reports, Sportradar’s Audit Committee commissioned a third-party independent review which confirmed the company has a rigorous compliance framework in place to ensure our products are used by customers in compliance with applicable laws and regulations.

“It concluded the allegations are unfounded and present a deliberately misleading narrative. The licensing of our customers is determined by the regulatory bodies in the jurisdictions where those clients operate, not by Sportradar.”

Tracing the filings back

The earliest matching notice identified by Active8 dates back to 1 November 2013. But that complaint concerned football analysis on a blog apparently belonging to someone called Alex Gramm. Gramm does not appear connected to 1xBet. The 1xBet-related pattern appears from October 2025 onwards.

Speaking to iGB, a spokesperson for Active8Insights pointed out what he called a particularly striking finding in his publication: Active8 said an October 2025 complaint identified the sender as “Alex Gramm on behalf of 1xBet”.

But 1xBet has insisted it has no connection to Alex Gramm. It is important here to bear in mind that that is evidence of what the filer declared about whom the so-called Alex Gramm represented – not proof that 1xBet authorised the filing.

The takedown records established what was submitted and what material was targeted. They do not, by themselves, establish who commissioned the campaign.

As Active8Insights also states in its article: “We have no evidence that 1xBet, or Sportradar, filed, commissioned, or knew about this notice, and we do not allege it. What we can document is what the filings did.”

Notably, Google copyright claims are relatively easy to abuse, and many publications find themselves having to appeal invalid requests quite often.

A wider trail of takedowns

According to Active8Insights’ reconstruction, the name Alex Gramm appears on at least 12 takedown notices covering 84 URLs across roughly 68 domains.

Active8 says 10 of those notices appear to have served the interests of 1xBet, involving the operator’s branding, marketing material or journalism about it.

The targets extend well beyond Active8. A 27 April notice sought removal of 18 URLs across 14 domains, including gambling publication Gaming Intelligence, Brazilian media Estadão, The Hindu, Play the Game, BettingBladet and other gambling and sport publications.

iGB has also received several requests to remove content covering 1xBet, across both its editorial brands.

Interestingly, Active8 says the material concerned coverage of the 22 April short-seller reports on Sportradar by Callisto Research and Muddy Waters.

The reports have raised questions about Sportradar’s relationship with operators more broadly.

The Sportradar question

A DMCA notice is, of course, not inherently a sinister move. Copyright law exists precisely to allow rights-holders to remove infringing material. The unusual element here – as presented by Active8Insights’ investigation – is the alleged use of the mechanism against journalism, as well as one notice that was supposedly submitted on behalf of Muddy Waters Research. Muddy Waters, Active8 says, insists it did not submit the complaint.

The takedown story lands in the middle of a much larger argument involving Sportradar.

Callisto Research and Muddy Waters’ separate reports both accused Sportradar of having extensive relationships with black and grey-market gambling operators.

Callisto estimated that roughly a third of Sportradar’s revenue could be connected to illicit platforms; Muddy Waters made similar allegations. Sportradar’s shares fell sharply that day, by roughly a fifth, amid the reports.

Sportradar has staunchly rejected the allegations. In a 28 April filing, it said contracts required clients to obtain necessary licences and that this applied even where customers hold offshore licences, provided those licences are acceptable in the relevant jurisdictions and the operators comply with local law.

Sportradar, for its part, says its compliance procedures include licence verification, ownership checks, sanctions screening and continuing audits.

The disagreement is therefore not merely about whether an operator possesses a piece of paper called a licence. It is about whether that licence has legal meaning in the market where the gambling takes place.

From short report to courtroom

The complex controversy has moved beyond the stock market and into litigation.

On 18 May, an investor filed Smale vs Sportradar Group AG et al in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging securities-law violations during a class period running from 7 November 2024 to 21 April 2026.

Law firm Robbins Geller subsequently sought investors to participate in the proposed class action, alleging that Sportradar and senior executives had violated the Securities Exchange Act.

Those are allegations, not findings of a court.

The same is true of Callisto’s and Muddy Waters’ claims – and, again, the same goes for Active8Insights’ interpretation of the takedown trail described in this article.

Active8Insights’ investigation does not prove that Sportradar ordered anyone to erase criticism, or that 1xBet authorised complaints filed by Alex Gramm.

What it does provide is a paper trail suggesting that attempts were made to make reporting about 1xBet and Sportradar less visible online.