Bing modified to enable porn filtering
After plenty of coverage about how its Bing search engine makes it all too easy for kids to find and view porn, Microsoft has made some changes that will make it easier for parents to block or monitor what their kids are viewing on the site.
In a blog post, Microsoft announced that it is making two changes the company thinks will help address the issue.
According to the post, "explicit images and video content will now be coming from a separate single domain, explicit.bing.net. This is invisible to the end customer, but allows for filtering of that content by domain, which makes it much easier for customers at all levels to block this content regardless of what the SafeSearch settings might be."
With this change, parents should be able to use parental control tools to block that domain and therefore block the images and videos. Almost all third-party filtering tools can be configured to block specific domains or sites, as can the parental controls in Microsoft Vista and Mac OS X.
Microsoft will also return the "source URL" information of specific images and videos, so if a filtering program blocks that site, it will prevent the video or image from being viewed within Bing. For example, if there is a video playing at Playboy.com, a filtering program that blocks Playboy would also prevent someone from viewing the content from inside Bing.
I tested this by right-clicking on a thumbnail of an explicit video in Bing and looking at properties. The URL of the image began with "ts3.explicit.bing.net." When I right-clicked on a sexual photograph, it contained "ts1.explicit.bing.net."
In an e-mail, Microsoft spokesman David Burt said the company has reached out to more than 25 filtering and security vendors to work with them to provide a solution for filtering explicit content while using Bing.
Bing raised the ire of some Internet safety advocates when it was discovered that all you have to do to watch an explicit video or view an image was to hover your mouse over its thumbnail within a Bing search. Although Bing's default settings would not bring up sexually explicit content, it did display an invitation saying "to view these videos, turn off safe search." One click later, the videos would start to play.
Microsoft's changes are likely to silence some--but not all--critics. Cris Clapp from the Internet safety group Enough is Enough said that "the steps they've taken are good," but added "it's important for them to make it more intuitive to guide parents to change filter settings."
These new features should also make it easier for schools and businesses to filter student or employee access to explicit content.
I'm pleased that Microsoft responded relatively quickly to concerns about how easy it was for kids to find and view porn. But even with these changes, parents still need to stay in close touch with how their kids are using Bing or any other Internet site. Not all families will want to use Internet filters. I didn't when my kids were younger but instead had frequent conversations with them about appropriate Internet use. But these changes should be welcome news for those parents who do choose to use tools to filter or monitor their kids' access. Without filters in place, it will still be easy for kids to access porn from within Bing, but at least parents will soon be able to block it if that's what they want to do.
Larry Magid is a technology journalist and an Internet safety advocate. He's been writing and speaking about Internet safety since he wrote Internet safety guide "Child Safety on the Information Highway" in 1994. He is co-director of ConnectSafely.org, founder of SafeKids.com and SafeTeens.com, and a board member of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Larry's technology analysis and commentary can be heard on CBS News and CBS affiliates, and read on CBSNews.com. He also writes a personal-tech column for the San Jose Mercury News. You can e-mail Larry or follow him on Twitter @larrymagid. 
If your kids wish to do that, there is NOTHING you can do in all honesty to stop them.
It hardens your heart.
Gives you unreal expectations of how sex occurs, or even how people act when having sex.
Not to mention becoming an addiction that will haunt you for years to come, and possibly split apart your marriage when you're old enough to have a wife.
Enough said.
That headline is misleading. I thought it meant you could eliminate any extraneous items so as to have only the finest unadulterated porn. Bummer.
Because they were the only decent candidate.
Give it time, and a new 'Facebook' may soon overtake it.
What problem? There was never any problem. Finding porn using a search engine? Google does it.
However I guess it's good that Microsoft made it easier to filter that stuff using third party software.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10262959-2.html
I suppose it's a good thing. Like people said above though, children will find a way...especially since their parents probably don't want filtering.
I love how MS haters think Apple or Linux is capable of making no mistakes and when they can find no other reason to ***** about MS they pick the smallest issues that don't affect them.
Bing works perfectly :)
When does a search engine become biased about queries?
They made a way for kids to search for porn in schools and gave no way for those schools to filter the results. That's a fairly massive screw up.
- by BeforetheFire July 21, 2009 9:46 AM PDT
- If you don't think it harms children to watch porn you are an absolute idiot and I hope you and your 'philosophy' are no where near my children. And Bing's 'filters' are not working. My 14-year-old son did a video search this morning on Bing for a 'Man vs Wild' clip and he was exposed to Bing's many pornographic options. Went back to Google. The same search on Google did not result in porn.
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