Bing Modified To Enable Porn Filtering

Now Easier For Parents To Block And Monitor What Children Are Viewing On The Site

(CBS)  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.

[morphine123]

Guys!!! most antivirus has parental control it is the best way of getting kids out of porn sites just browser cant help

http://www.ceveni.com/2009/06/how-to-block-sexual-websites-and.html

[zonkzilla]

From what my young nephews in middle school and high school tell me they don't need to go to porn sites as girls now are more than happy to satisfy them for real.

[Slrman]

Anyone that believes that this, or anything else will prevent children or adults from viewing anything they want is living in a dream world. The most totalitarian society imaginable, which the USA is rapidly approaching, cannot stop people from having what they want. Unfortunately politicians and even most "normal" people are far too stupid to understand that.

"Anything one man can do, another man can undo." Teenagers will be able to do it even more quickly.

[libftw]

This is horrible news!

[longtree-2009]

so many search engines, so little time. none of them are good enough to get exactly what one keys in to have searched, and displayed. but all of them, each of them, are better than nothing.

[skeezix06]

It's nice that they've filtered out porn.

Now if they would just give us the ability to filter out all those commercial sites that make it impossible to go straight to the website you want to find (like we were able to do just a year or two ago) instead of being laundered through intermediate websites that may or may not give you a link to the actual website.

[jincstress]

Bing is the best thing Microsoft has put out since windows 98. Please don't let lame parents ruin it for the rest of us. If they over-tweak this to accommodate parents who have no control over their children and expect the world to baby sit I'm going to be so pist. It's perfect.

[mnbrant]

Bleh. don't care. don't want it. Maybe if they changed the name to Bling; the screen name of one of my best internet friends I'd be interested. Prolly not.

[mnbrant]

Bing. My friend has that. I use google chrome and have no problems with it so have no reason to switch.