"We do have some technical safeguards in our trusted partner program (where submitters may be using automated mechanisms to send large volumes) as a safeguard against accidental flooding of the system," the spokeswoman said in an email to Computerworld.

A source close to Google noted that the RIAA complaints are curious because Microsoft has been able to put in about 10 times as many takedown requests as the RIAA. The numbers seem to undercut the RIAA claims about artificial limits, the source said.

Jaikumar Vijayan covers data security and privacy issues, financial services security and e-voting for Computerworld. Follow Jaikumar on Twitter at , or subscribe to . His e-mail address is .

in Computerworld's Security Topic Center.