Microsoft outsources copyright enforcement to small Redmond company

Pulin Thakkar, a 15-year veteran of Microsoft, is the company's founder. He has a background in VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) and SIP protocols, and no legal background. Thakkar left Microsoft in 2010 to found his company.

Thakkar said his interest in counterfeit issues and digital piracy came afterwards reading a story about a child being killed because of a counterfeit mobile phone charger bought by his parents during on a trip in Thailand.

"At a high level, I help [Microsoft] deal with online counterfeit," he said. "We watch on the Internet to find such incidents, and help them move."

But when Ars pointed out that people dying from faulty mobile phone chargers was a far cry from keeping unauthorized copies of software at bay, he re-iterated that his main interest is to protect consumers: "At the end of the day, consumers to get harmed because of this."

Thakkar declined to provide revenue details, nor explain what the contractual relationship between Marketly and Microsoft is, nor how sites are targeted for takedown notices.

Public records show that Marketly was founded just over two years ago and incorporated out of a residential address in Bellevue, Washington. In accordance with "special address" information, the business license as well lists an address for a "Mailbox and Shipping Center" in Redmond. The company's site says it's based in Redmond, Washington, with a "satellite office in Ahmadabad, India," which appears to be a few nameless people listed on LinkedIn.

The Senior Business Editor at Ars Technica

Cyrus Farivar / Cyrus is the Senior Business Editor at Ars Technica, and is as well a radio producer and author. His book, The Internet of Elsewhere, was published in April 2011.