DailyTech - Bing Adds Porn Search Domain to Safeguard Users

Submit News

Internet Bing Adds Porn Search Domain to Safeguard Users
Jason Mick (Blog) - June 16, 2009 6:30 PM

16 comment(s) - last by Chiisuchianu.. on Jun 17 at 11:48 AM

Microsoft responds to criticism with creation of new domain

Microsoft's Bing created waves when it launched a couple weeks ago. The new search engine from Microsoft reportedly even had Google a bit nervous. Many users took it for a test drive. One thing that some noticed was that upon turning SafeSearch off, pornographic results, including video clips began showing up -- like in Yahoo and Google. Unlike those competitors, though, putting the mouse over the clips (as well as non-adult clips) would start them playing, complete with sound, a featured dubbed Smart Motion Preview. The touted feature fast became a public relations nightmare for Microsoft.

Faster than you can say "NSFW", Microsoft dreamed up a solution, creating a new domain for porn searches, differentiating them from other results. The new domain explicit.bing.net will route the pornographic results into Bing -- pictures and clips from adult websites -- when SafeSearch is disabled.

Bing general manager Mike Nichols describes, "Potentially explicit images and video content will now be coming from a separate, single domain. This is invisible to the end customer, but allows for filtering of that content by domain name which makes it much easier for customers at all levels to block this content regardless of what the SafeSearch settings might be."

In other words, IT departments can now specifically block all pornographic results by blocking a single Bing domain. This means that Bing's innovative Smart Motion Preview featured can be reinstated in places it has been blocked -- such as various businesses, China, and several Muslim nations.

The latest data from Comscore indicates that Bing currently holds 8 percent of the international search market, Yahoo holds 21 percent, and Google holds 64 percent.

Comments

Threshold

Username
Password
remember me

This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled

And im already going back to google.

By Joz on 6/16/2009 6:59:30 PM , Rating: 2

Becouse when it comes to searching for porn (I mean viruses disguised as sexualy attractive images,) google is the best!

RE: And im already going back to google.

By rs1 on 6/16/2009 7:55:46 PM , Rating: 5

Actually I'm pretty impressed with Bing. For plain web search, I still prefer Google, but Bing's image and video search is far better than Google's, in my opinion. I especially like how instead of having to paginate through the results of an image search, with Bing you just scroll down and more results are pulled in dynamically. That feature alone has made Google's image search feel too clunky to use anymore. Google is a bit more competitive when it comes to video search, but I still slightly prefer Bing because I find their default layout a bit nicer, and because the mouseover effect is actually pretty useful, once you're aware of how it works.

I was very skeptical of Bing when it came out, but I think Microsoft really did a pretty solid job with it.

Parent

RE: And im already going back to google.

By mindless1 on 6/16/2009 8:12:43 PM , Rating: 4

Try Firefox add-on "Autopager", it solves that for more sites than just Google.

Parent

RE: And im already going back to google.

By rs1 on 6/16/2009 8:15:03 PM , Rating: 2

But what if my preferred browser is Chrome?

Parent

RE: And im already going back to google.

By Totally on 6/16/2009 9:36:31 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
Try Firefox add-on "Autopager"

ah no, autopager isn't seemless and polished as bing.

quote:
it solves that for more sites than just Google.

not really if the website isn't in the database. And you need to know a bit to configure it properly.

Parent

RE: And im already going back to google.

By InternetGeek on 6/16/2009 8:56:37 PM , Rating: 3

I'm actually liking Bing better for all my searches now. Simply put, the results are actually much more relevant to my query with bing.

Parent

RE: And im already going back to google.

By djcameron on 6/16/2009 9:20:41 PM , Rating: 2

Yeah, I decided to try Bing, exclusively, for 30 days, and I've found that I don't miss Google at all. If anything, I've found that the search quality is not just the same, it's actually better than Google.

Parent

RE: And im already going back to google.

By dk494922 on 6/17/2009 4:04:18 AM , Rating: 3

Same here, I am amazed with Bing. It is now my default search.

Parent

RE: And im already going back to google.

By Chiisuchianu on 6/17/2009 11:48:27 AM , Rating: 2

I agree, the video and image search are a much more superior design to Google's. However, I find that the results are somewhat inferior to Google's which is a shame because Bing's features are better. Bing also needs to add "extra large images" to the size filter. The shopping section is good too because it gives you cash back, but again the search results are inferior to Google's.

Parent

While were talking catch phrases

By tastyratz on 6/16/2009 11:13:37 PM , Rating: 5

Why didn't they just go with Ding? It could be the explicit companion to Bing.

"Oh man I was so lonely I just Dinged it last night"

Could really catch on