Counterspine — Public Takedown Intelligence for Notice Recipients
Over 137 million public takedown records under one roof: learn when your domain shows up, investigate who sent the notice, and build a response with the evidence attached.
A radar for the public takedown record
When a page drops out of Google after a copyright complaint, the site owner usually finds out late — and blind. The notices sit scattered across half a dozen public databases that hardly anyone knows how to cross-reference. Counterspine ingests and normalises takedown records from six of those sources, links them together and compiles sender profiles, so the person on the receiving end can see the whole pattern instead of a single incident.
It is the most ambitious product in my own-product lineup: a subscription SaaS wrapping a free public lookup, domain monitoring and a full investigation-and-response workspace.
Core capabilities
- Free, login-less domain lookup — check in seconds whether a domain appears anywhere in the indexed takedown record.
- Continuous monitoring of saved domains, with alerts whenever a freshly ingested record matches.
- Sender intelligence: wording, timing, volume and target patterns per sender, backed by filing history across sources.
- Provenance by default — every result links to the original public record, and coverage gaps are shown rather than hidden.
- Response preparation: organise evidence and generate assisted counter-notice drafts that always await human review — nothing is filed automatically.
- Privacy-aware publishing: notice bodies are screened and redacted before any public display.
Index size and sources
The index currently holds 137,410,101 records and 1,113,390 sender profiles drawn from six public sources: the Lumen Database (75M+ notices reported by Lumen as of June 2026), the Google Transparency Report (17.9B+ requested URLs since 2011), the EU DSA transparency database, the USCO designated-agent directory, CCB filings and the Wikimedia DMCA archive.
Each source publishes on its own cadence — the DSA database issues statements daily, while Wikimedia releases redacted notices listing the exact affected URLs — so the product states the covered-through date per source instead of pretending total coverage.
Product engineering
Counterspine is built from scratch as a Ruby on Rails SaaS — my core product stack — with a Hotwire/Turbo and Stimulus frontend that feels instant without a heavyweight JavaScript framework. Underneath sits a database sized for nine-digit record counts and ingestion pipelines that reconcile six sources, each with its own format and publishing cadence.
Public sender and record pages double as a programmatic SEO layer feeding the SaaS funnel: from search result to free lookup, from lookup to subscription.
What this SaaS says about how I work
No client asked for Counterspine. I spotted a gap between fragmented public databases and filled it as an own product, owning domain research, architecture, ingestion and go-to-market. The requirements were not handed to me — I uncovered them by operating the thing.
The outcome shows my judgement on delicate ground: source-level provenance, limitations stated honestly, and automation that assists a human decision instead of replacing it.
Counterspine, answered
Which public sources does Counterspine index?
Six of them: the Lumen Database, the Google Transparency Report, the EU DSA transparency database, the US Copyright Office designated-agent directory, public CCB filings and the Wikimedia DMCA archive. Every indexed record keeps a link back to its original source.
Does Counterspine file counter-notices automatically?
Never. It assembles the evidence and produces assisted drafts, but each draft is explicitly for human review — nothing is ever auto-filed on a user's behalf.
Is an account required to run a search?
No — the domain lookup is free and login-less. Continuous monitoring, sender profiles and the case workspace are part of the subscription, which starts with a free trial.
Who gets the most value out of it?
Publishers and newsrooms whose stories vanish from search after a copyright complaint, SEO agencies watching client domains at scale, and legal or research teams that want the full pattern before deciding how to respond.