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'Porn King' Says Google Should Block Porn Access

Posted by Zonk on from the i-guess-he's-thinking-of-the-children dept.

mikesd81 writes "The Register has a story saying that one of the world's biggest porn producers wants Google and other search sites to put up barriers between kids and adult entertainment. 'Steven Hirsch, the co-chairman and co-founder of Vivid Entertainment, is to deliver this message on Saturday in New Haven, Connecticut as he addresses an army of Yale University MBA candidates. "Responsible companies in the adult industry such as ours have done a great deal to deter minors from accessing adult material," Hirsch proclaims from inside a Vivid press release. "None of the search engines and portals, but particularly Yahoo and Google, has taken any significant steps in this direction.'"

45 of 424 comments (clear)

  1. Oh the Humanity! by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Steven Hirsch: "Won't somebody please think of my profit margins ... *cough* I mean ... children?!"

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:Oh the Humanity! by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Steven Hirsch: "Won't somebody please think of my profit margins ... *cough* I mean ... children?!"
      Absolutely. And what's wrong with that approach? Businesses, especially porn, aren't there as a community service. Porn sites are required to make at least some minimal attempt to screen out kids from access, why shouldn't Google? Google is very much more than just a search engine, they are a content provider.
      --
      If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    2. Re:Oh the Humanity! by orclevegam · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Google already has a "Safe Search" feature on google images that's enabled by default and blocks (or attempts at any rate) pornographic images. I see no reason to implement something similar in the regular search results, as you won't see anything unless you click through to the site anyway. I'm going to be supremely pissed if I have to start clicking a "Yes I'm 18 or older" link every time I want to do a damn search on google because of this stupid whining. Google is not a "content provider", they are a content aggregator, the fact that they attempt to categorize and sort the content is incidental and they can't be held responsible for it because they didn't actually create it and therefor cannot guarantee it's been identified properly.

      --
      Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
    3. Re:Oh the Humanity! by orclevegam · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Because Google isn't a porn site?
      Really? Do an image search for some porn. See all those thumbnails? Generated by Google's own software and hosted on Googles own servers. And in doing this research did you happen to notice the "Safe Search" feature that blocks those images unless you agree to view them?
      --
      Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
    4. Re:Oh the Humanity! by plague3106 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well personally I think its the parents job, and not society's, to filter what the children should see.

    5. Re:Oh the Humanity! by davidwr · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Do an image search for porn. The image filter is on by default. If it's not filtering, it's broken.

      Also, if parents let their kids search for porn on Google, it's up to the parents to stop it, not Google. Google is not a Net Nanny (TM) nor should it be one.

      Now, I do see an aftermarket opportunity for value-added software to work with Google, Inc., to develop filters that parents, schools, and others who want "child-friendly" computers can use that will greatly reduce adult-oriented material in Google search results. Even better if the major p0rn industry players help out.

      Just keep the government out and don't make me sign in to avoid the filters.

      Not that I want porn, I just don't want filters.
      --
      Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
    6. Re:Oh the Humanity! by dpilot · · Score: 5, Insightful

      He's not concerned about people with "safe search" checked. He's fussing over people without it checked getting access to his images without his getting any money for it.

      Or you could say that he's either "insufficiently diligent" or "insufficiently knowledgeable" to protect images on his sites from deep searching.

      --
      The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
    7. Re:Oh the Humanity! by xaxa · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'd be more worried as a parent if I saw my 14 year old son searching 'guns' on Google than 'porn'. The default filter doesn't block guns -- and it shouldn't. I don't think it should block porn either.

    8. Re:Oh the Humanity! by Irish_Samurai · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Your standard is not the standard.

      Granted, there weren't pictures of the mentioned techniques on the front covers of these magazines, in fact the front cover pictures were your typical fully clothed, respectable looking, successful women, as you'd expect in a modern woman's magazine. But doesn't it seem like having those kinds of headlines at eye-level to a fifth grader might make our children get some wrong ideas about sexuality, as in, it should always be on their mind, because it's always on the front cover of those magazines? Your kid cannot perceive the information the same way as you. They have no running history or experience that might even give them the faintest insight into what "Make Him Wild With Desire!!!" might mean. The closest they can get is to relate it to sex, and in 5th grade, sex is just a barely recognizable concept to them.

      With no trigger time those statements lack context, without context those statements have no meaning other than whatever the kid makes up - which I guarantee will be totally wrong due to said inexperience. The same is true for any subject that child has never experienced. There is no damage being done to children becuase there is nothing to damage, the child's worldview will not allow them to consume the information that way.

      Now, it may bug the shit out of you, because you have real live personal experience to put it into context. And since you're posting on /. I'm going to assume you have an IQ over 60, can see in color, and know how to breathe out of your nose. These assumptions being true, you have the ability to imagine a scenario where the headline has a negative effect on a child and their perception of sex and turns into a real problem for them down the road.

      This is inaccurate. Let's remove from the situation all likelyhood that a fifth grader has no interest in "housewife" magazines, but yet an interest in the more age appropriate materials that the marketers have placed there especially for them to trigger the "nag marketing" effect. So now those "harmful" words can attack a child's fragile psyche unabated. That child STILL has no clue what they mean. So they very well can't extrapolate that the message is telling them to pay attention to sex more often. The only knowledge most kids have of sex at this age is clinically how it works. And even if they have experience first hand, I can promise you it wasn't positive.

      The effect you are describing has no way to manifest anywhere except in your head.
    9. Re:Oh the Humanity! by russotto · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I also used to think that it was the parent's, and only the parent's, job to filter out inappropriate content. But then one day, I was in the checkout aisle at the grocery store, and every single one of the women's magazines had a headline like "Have Hot Sex Tonight!!", "Make Him Wild With Desire!!!", "Naughty Nasties You Can Do To Him In The Bedroom!!!!!!!!!!". Right there, in the open, next to the freaking candy.


      Yeah, there's somebody at the local grocery stores who likes to cover up the women's magazines. It took me a while to figure out their criterion for censorship... it's the word "sex".

      Guess what. It's just a word. I uncover the magazines.

      The point is, it is the parent's primary responsibility to filter out unwanted material, but that doesn't give you the right to go around glamorizing, or even normalizing, overtly sexual behavior in places you could reasonably expect to find a preschooler.


      There's nothing remotely abnormal in the first two of the headlines you posted. And there's no reason the rest of the people of the world should be restricted in their public utterances or publications to that which you find appropriate for a pre-schooler. If you wish your child to have a filtered, desexualized version of the world, there's probably a single-sex boarding school you could send him or her to. Making the entire world, outside a few adult-only refuges, into such a place is not a reasonable demand.
    10. Re:Oh the Humanity! by plague3106 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I also used to think that it was the parent's, and only the parent's, job to filter out inappropriate content. But then one day, I was in the checkout aisle at the grocery store, and every single one of the women's magazines had a headline like "Have Hot Sex Tonight!!", "Make Him Wild With Desire!!!", "Naughty Nasties You Can Do To Him In The Bedroom!!!!!!!!!!". Right there, in the open, next to the freaking candy.

      Which is why many stores have a no-candy lane, which typically also don't have these magazines. The other option is to leave the kid at home. Again, society has apparently decided this is ok, so if you're in the minority that has a problem, YOU need to work around it, not bend the majority to your will.

      Granted, there weren't pictures of the mentioned techniques on the front covers of these magazines, in fact the front cover pictures were your typical fully clothed, respectable looking, successful women, as you'd expect in a modern woman's magazine. But doesn't it seem like having those kinds of headlines at eye-level to a fifth grader might make our children get some wrong ideas about sexuality, as in, it should always be on their mind, because it's always on the front cover of those magazines?

      That line of thinking is just plain dumb. Parents are the single greatest influence on their children, not all this outside stuff. Sex gets on your mind because of biological reasons, not because you saw magizines at an age where you might not even know what is being talked about. Do you think a kid that doesn't know about sex has any idea what the "naughty things you can do to him in the bedroom" implies?

      What am I supposed to do about that kind of situation, keep my kid inside and away from grocery stores until they're 18? The point is, it is the parent's primary responsibility to filter out unwanted material, but that doesn't give you the right to go around glamorizing, or even normalizing, overtly sexual behavior in places you could reasonably expect to find a preschooler.

      You're delusional if you think that a preschooler can even read the magazine cover and even know what is being talked about. You're also delusional if you think that hiding magazines will keep kids from ever knowing about sex. At some point biology enters into it. As a responsible parent, you should have discussed the relevent issues before that happens. There's a reason girls brought up in a strict Catholic upbringing and going to all Catholic schools become the campus slut in college.

      I don't believe government regulation is the way to solve this kind of issue, but I think it's well within your rights (including your First Amendment rights), to speak out and ask the corporations, who do have some kind of control what gets displayed where, to do something about it.

      No, its not. Instead of getting government to censor people, you're trying to get corporations to do it for you. Same result, different tactic. Censorship is censorship no matter what group is enforcing it.

      For the record, I plan to use a locked-down computer with all sorts of nanny software when my child gets old enough to use one (he/she is due in July, which is why I've been thinking about it more), so this particular issue of Google and Yahoo possibly not doing enough to filter things for the populace at large isn't going to affect me. I just wanted to point out that society, including businesses and including you, the individual, isn't entirely free of responsibility when it comes to someone else's child.

      If its my responsiblity to help raise your child, than I should get a say in how you're raising your child. If you're going to blame me because your child didn't come out the way you wanted, then I certainly can be more involved in how you raise your kid. For the record, I think religon is garbage, so when raising your kid, raise them atheist. I don't want you filling your kid's head with fairy tales and myths.

    11. Re:Oh the Humanity! by crymeph0 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If they're smart enough to sneak around the walls I set up around them undetected, I've raised them right, and they're probably ready to start facing the "real world". If they aren't, they need to get smarter and start thinking more for themselves before they can get out. The "wall" is as much a training mechanism as a protection mechanism, in that it makes them think.

      --
      It should be illegal to say that freedom of speech should be limited.
    12. Re:Oh the Humanity! by crymeph0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Your kid cannot perceive the information the same way as you. They have no running history or experience that might even give them the faintest insight into what "Make Him Wild With Desire!!!" might mean. The closest they can get is to relate it to sex, and in 5th grade, sex is just a barely recognizable concept to them.

      Even if the child doesn't really understand what sex is, those headlines will make him or her think it's something they should be doing a lot of, because those magazines straight-up glamorize it on the front page. I don't think I can say with a straight face that won't have an effect on how they view sex, and particularly how much they should be having, when they do come to understand more about it. "The formative years" isn't a cliche, it's true.

      I will agree that the particular issue of these magazines in the newsstands is a gray area, where reasonable people can disagree (you and I are two such). The gray area aspect of the whole "where is the border between acceptable displays of sexuality and porn" is precisely why I say I am against government intervention in this space, and would rather have a conversation with the owners of the newsstands/websites/etc. directly, as a consumer. This allows them to make an informed choice themselves about what their consumers want. I'm not going to sue them if they refuse to take the magazines down, but I will go to another store if I can find one that does agree with me.

      --
      It should be illegal to say that freedom of speech should be limited.
    13. Re:Oh the Humanity! by mental666 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Oh, the abuse is a side issue. I understood the article as someone trying to push the burden of not displaying smut onto google. The reality is that had they implemented a sane robots.txt file in the first place, this would never have happened.

      So, from the perspective of liability, IMO the webmaster is responsible for exercising due diligence in creating a robots.txt that would have prevented booby thumbnails from turning up on google when little johnny was searching for legos (spelled 'big titty chicks', but he really meant legos... his mom swears).

      Now, in that circumstance abuse or compliance of the contents of a robots.txt file still falls to the site owner and not some third party (google).

      Are there flaws in my idea? Certainly, it's the product of 5 minutes of thought and a bit of sarcasm. However, it seems to me that demanding google or any other search engine not show porn it spidered is silly especially since google actually honors robots.txt. Were the situation different I would argue that if a webmaster doesn't want something spidered you should adhere to that.

    14. Re:Oh the Humanity! by mental666 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You're kind of conflating two issues. It isn't so much about security (so password protection doesn't apply). Nor is it about robots.txt (vivid wants to be found).

      The issue is that what vivid would like to have happen is that if an 18+ year old person were to google for 'return to booby island' he would find links to or images from vivid entertainment.

      If someone underage were to search for the same thing, google should magically know and display more appropriate images.

      The current industry standard comes up a little short WRT robots.txt since it's a binary statement and what they're really after is conditional qualifiers. Essentially they're looking for a way to express situations when that content is valid to display or not.

      Now, all of this comes with a big grain of salt. The actual article and opinions expressed are... not very reasonable or well thought out IMO.

    15. Re:Oh the Humanity! by crymeph0 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If its my responsiblity to help raise your child, than I should get a say in how you're raising your child. If you're going to blame me because your child didn't come out the way you wanted, then I certainly can be more involved in how you raise your kid. For the record, I think religon is garbage, so when raising your kid, raise them atheist. I don't want you filling your kid's head with fairy tales and myths.

      So you agree with my idea in principle, we're just quibbling over price. I can deal. I will agree that my child will be raised to respect your opinions, and not in a Southern Baptist "I respect your opinion, you hell-bound faggot" sense, but really to accept that you have the right to live your life the way you want. My child will also not kill you or your family for sport.

      In exchange, I only ask that you not swear or talk about sex in front of my child before they're at least in middle school. That's all

      Everybody in this thread has assumed that I am somehow hell-bent on keeping my child away from all uncomfortable subjects until they're 18, and that I want everyone else to stop what they're doing so it doesn't interfere with my master plan. That's not the case, I just think people need to respect that children are impressionable, and just because it's primarily the parent's job to filter out the bad, it's not necessarily alright for you to act like there will never be children in a public place.

      --
      It should be illegal to say that freedom of speech should be limited.
    16. Re:Oh the Humanity! by greenbird · · Score: 4, Insightful

      but that doesn't give you the right to go around glamorizing, or even normalizing, overtly sexual behavior in places you could reasonably expect to find a preschooler.

      Yeah, because we all know that any kind of sexual behavior is abnormal and only perverted sickos think otherwise. Now hurry up so I can get home and watch my Rambo V rental video.

      Why is it sex is sick and perverted while glamorization of mayhem and violence is accepted as good and normal. A video game company makes a game in which the objective is murder and mayhem of every form but when it comes out that is has a hidden scene depicting consensual sex it becomes a major scandal. A nipple slipping out during halftime of a game dedicated to violently slamming people to the ground turns into a national crisis. I just don't get it.

      --
      Who is John Galt?
    17. Re:Oh the Humanity! by severoon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In all fairness, I like Google and freedom and all that good stuff, but they messed up safe search. It shouldn't be a user settable option, the safe Google search engine should be at a different URL. Like safe.google.com or something like that. This way, if I'm a parent I can whitelist safe.google.com and ban www.google.com at my router. Kids still get google and all the wonders of the Internet and I get to exercise soul-crushing control over every aspect of their lives. (Not that I would, as a parent, do this...but we must recognize that there are irrational people out there that believe it's a good idea to shield their kids from having to deal with the world in the hopes that, at some point in the future, thrusting them into said world with a complete lack of practice, understanding, and context will allow them to flourish. And these irrational people will make life difficult for us all unless we may it easy for them to corrupt their children by pervasively imposing limits on every aspect of their existence.)

      Wikipedia could do the same thing too—it wouldn't be hard to create, say, a couple or three categories of safety and then create subdomains like safe1.wikipedia.org and safe2.wikipedia.org that only allow browsing of that safety level (inclusive of safer levels, obviously). Same as before, parents block wikipedia.org and whitelist the safety level they're comfortable with. Best of all, with this approach specific content can be targeted at different levels of safety. Say I view an article on xtina piercing, for example. The helpful image might be listed as "unsafe" whereas the text describing the topic might be at safety level 5. Viewing that article via www.wikipedia.org would show the whole deal. Viewing at safe5.wikipedia.org would show the text and a placeholder for the image. Viewing that article via safe4.wikipedia.org would show a placeholder for the entire article: "This content is unsafe for viewing at safety level 4." Or vice versa—maybe if I'm browsing an article on an organization called "Kill the Purple Beast", the text of the article exceeds my safety level but the image of Barney is just fine for display, so that's all I see. Then at least I know the "purple beast" they're referring to is Barney, and I've gotten some value from the experience.

      --
      but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
    18. Re:Oh the Humanity! by penguin_dance · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That being said, we are sexualizing our children at an alarming rate. What bothers me more than titillating (pun intended) headlines is when we, as a society, think it's okay, even cute, to let our daughters dress up like the little slut girl bands they admire. And I'm not sure why any parent would think it's okay to let their pre-teen (or teen) wear a shirt or pants that say things like "juicy" on them. Or sending babies out in beauty pageants made up like little adults. What message are we sending to both our children and to those who prey on children? Children are much more aware of things than they used to be. No wonder, we're throwing it in their face in every area of society and then saying, "Ignore this until you get older." Yes the fifth-grader might not be interested in the "housewife" magazines. But he will be sure to notice the anime girl on the latest gaming magazine that looks like she walked out of Penthouse.

      --
      If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
    19. Re:Oh the Humanity! by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Here's an easy solution and you don't even have to teach your kid to not kill atheists in their spare time.

      Every time you see a magazine: tell your kid how stupid those magazine are. By the time they can read the word sex they'll have gotten impressed into their impressionable young mind that those magazine are stupid and to be disregarded. If they don't trust your assessment then you're screwed either way and no headline is ever going to do more damage than that setback. Don't say the magazine are "bad". Just belittle them and immature and stupid.

      While they're young they'll believe you because you're like a God to them. When they're old they'll believe you because you've told them every day of their lives that they're for "desperate old ugly housewives who have nothing to do with their time and live sad pathetic lives". Nothing enticing. Just something the 'uncool' mom would read. Something you wouldn't be caught dead by your friends reading or even looking at.

    20. Re:Oh the Humanity! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I hope you never reach a position of power because I would not want to be forced your hangups about sex. Out of the 3 titles you listed, only 1 specificly mentions sex. How do you know the others were about sex? Why did your mind suddenly think about sex?
      "Make Him Wild With Desire!!!" maybe this was referring to setting up a comfortable environment where he would go wild for candy
      "Naughty Nasties You Can Do To Him In The Bedroom!!!!!!!!!!" maybe this was about playing pranks on him in the bedroom?
      I didn't read them, I don't know. I don't understand what the American hangups are regarding sex but it's a big problem. Maybe instead of sheltering your child and continuing this cycle of sex is dirty, bad and wrong, maybe you should promote safe healthy sex and teach them rather then batter them with your hangups. Maybe you should keep your child locked away at home not exposing them to the big bad real world. It would be much better then me being forced your up tight "values"
      What's the old saying, clean up your own backyard?

  2. XXX domain names. by ArcherB · · Score: 4, Insightful

    .XXX domain names would help here. Sure, it won't prevent kids from accessing 100% of adult content, but it would certainly make it easier for sites like Google and applications like Net-Nanny filter the adult sites with that domain. It would also go a long way toward showing that adult site operators can be responsible and are putting forth an honest effort to limit "adult content" to adults only.

    --
    There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
    1. Re:XXX domain names. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      No they wouldn't. Repeat after me, "DNS is not a content classification system".

      What would help here is a robots.txt, seems this bozo has done everything in his power apart from put a 2 line text file in his web root. The guy is full of it and is either a complete moron or has ulterior motives.

    2. Re:XXX domain names. by rs79 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I see it took slashdotters about 3 postings to figure this out. Rocket science it aint.

      " No they wouldn't. Repeat after me, "DNS is not a content classification system". "

      Inherently, not, you're right. But it can be used as one. Look at .museum which is only for museums, or .arpa or .coop or .mil or .aero for example(s) which all have specific uses. New DNS names are what we define them to be and have no intrinsic semantic property that precludes using them in this or any other way.

      So, if porn slowly migrated over to .xxx and google "safe search" filter ignored .xxx sites it would be possible by fairly simple technical means to do exacly what TFA wants.

      You'll note that .xxx passed ICANN approval at one point and went up to the Department of Commerce, ICANN's overlord, for rubber stamp approval, the last stop before being put in the legacy root zone. Insiders tell me Karl Rove himself nixed it as a political favour to the Southern Baptist convention who demanded it never see the light of day.

      --
      Need Mercedes parts ?
    3. Re:XXX domain names. by tverbeek · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The problem with .xxx is that - no matter how many times people thoughtlessly suppose otherwise - it would not remove a single pussy or cock shot from the .com namespace. The owner of xxxample.com isn't going to drop that domain; he'll just fork over the cash for xxxample.xxx and operate both.

      The only way .xxx would accomplish anything is if its use were required by law. Even if the U.S. legislature did that, and it passed Constitutional review, all that would do is send the porn sites to incorporate and operate overseas... so not only would it be ineffective, we'd be exporting yet another industry out of the U.S.

      --
      http://alternatives.rzero.com/
    4. Re:XXX domain names. by ArcherB · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's stupid. If you must do something with domain names, then create '.kids' and make it kiddy safe. This makes much more sense, since then you can 'deny all; allow *.kids' on your censoring device of choice. So you're telling me I should block all content, including Linux.com, distowatch, slashdot, CNN.com, NYT.com, FoxNews.com and so on just so my 12-yr old doesn't accidentally stumble upon a porno site while researching the dangers of breast enlargement surgery? Why not just block the bad stuff. Sorry, but it doesn't make much sense to stunt the intellectual development of kids just so you can still "accidentally" stumble upon porn. If you want to find porn, you should LOOK for porn! Using the .xxx domain also keeps those pesky breast enlargement danger sites off my porn search!

      And, yeah, I think there should be a .kids domain as well. It would work great for small kids in the home. Unfortunately, there is a large range where they are too old for the .kids stuff, but not quite ready for hard core animal anal action yet.
      --
      There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
    5. Re:XXX domain names. by hymie! · · Score: 2, Insightful

      " No they wouldn't. Repeat after me, "DNS is not a content classification system". "

      Inherently, not, you're right. But it can be used as one.

      You're only half-right. DNS as content classification can be used to keep people out -- as you noted, .museum is only for museums, .edu is only for schools. No non-porn sites would have a .xxx domain name.

      But that does nothing to stop porn sites (or museums or schools) from having .com addresses.

    6. Re:XXX domain names. by rs79 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "None of which are content classification. Tell me, should a pornography museum be under .xxx or .museum? DNS is not a content classification system and is totally unsuited for such (mis-)use."

      This is not a subtantive argument demonstrating the idea will not work. Just an edge-case that probably nobody cares about.

      "Um, yeah, and if 13-year-olds stopped looking for dirty pictures on the web, that'd solve the problem too. That's not going to happen either."

      Of course not. Nothing will stop a determined 13 year old. But an 8 year old that types "pussy" into google? That's different.

      The key here I think is "progess not perfection".

      I don't have a dog in this fight, I jsut think it's funny a solution is sought to what some perceive is a problem and a fairly elegant tehnical solution almost made the light of day but was squashed by the Bush administration; the net effect of which keeps porn in "the mainstream".

      I love irony like this. I live for it.

      --
      Need Mercedes parts ?
  3. Title is incorrect by Malevolent+Tester · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Should read:
    'Porn King' Says Google Should Block Internet Competition As It Hurts Video Sales

    --
    If you haven't made a developer cry, you've wasted a day.
  4. Heh, nice try by Applekid · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I sure wish I could call for google to block searches that wind up returning my competitors' sites in the name of the children.

    --
    More Twoson than Cupertino
  5. Translation: by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Translation: It isn't OUR fault that children can see porn on the Net, it's Google's and Yahoo's, since they don't filter search results for children. (Which is not actually entirely true in either case.)

    --
    My blog
  6. is it on the internet? by SoupGuru · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I use a search engine to search the internet.

    There is pr0n on the internet.

    I think it's pretty simple...

    --
    What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
  7. In other news, Microsoft denounces Open Source by jollyreaper · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "People are finding the same sort of stuff we're selling but they're getting it for free," Mr. Gates fumed.

    Though I do have to say, I sure am glad Google hosts the thumbnails on image searches, especially when a wholly innocent search returns the occasional hardcore goatporn image. "No, I can explain! It was actually a quite humorous and unexpected confluence of search terms!" "Yeah, yeah. Yell it to HR."

    --
    Kwisatz Haderach
    Sell the spice to CHOAM
    This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
  8. Who's Protecting Whom? by Gallenod · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Did Hirsch just say that the online porn industry is doing more to protect minors from porn than Google or Yahoo?

    Isn't that a lot like the Mafia saying they're doing more to protect people from criminals than the police?

    And, as absurd as it sounds, are those statements maybe more correct than we'd like?

    Trying to make search engine providers responsible for regulating online behavior is Nannyism taken to absurd lengths.

    Teach your children to make good choices, turn them loose, and be available to them when they need you.

    --

    TLR

    A man no more knows his destiny than a tea leaf knows the history of the East India Company
  9. Will never work... by owlnation · · Score: 3, Insightful

    As a teenager, in the days when there was no internet and a computer took up a medium sized building, I found porn. I found it, because I was actively trying to. So were most of my friends.

    I cannot think of any way you could have stopped me then, nor any way you could stop a teenager now. Age verification etc is simply a token gesture to shut-up the lunatics on the religious right-wing. It's a worthless annoyance.

    Porn isn't a big deal. It's people having sex, it's good thing. I do not want to have to jump through hoops to find it, and I am sick of paying the price for bad parenting. Educate the damn kids and leave the rest of us alone.

    Your kids are your problem, not society's.

  10. Re:Meta Tags by grumbel · · Score: 2, Insightful

    How about the other way around? Add a meta tag for stuff that isn't porn. Pages that are ok for children can be unlocked and the rest be easily blocked. This would be basically the same like most other rating works, when you have a game that isn't ESRB, USK, PEGI or whatever rated it is handled the same as an age-18/AO title, it doesn't go into the shops, it doesn't even get released for a console.

    There simply is zero hope to ever get everybody to mark their 'bad' content, but there is a good chance that some people will mark their 'good' content.

  11. All about Free Porn by Alsee · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Responsible companies in the adult industry such as ours have done a great deal to deter minors from accessing adult material"

    Ah, no. I think they have been doing what they can do deter non-paying people from accessing adult material. When a 16-year-old types in a valid credit card number there really isn't anything they sanely can or should be expected to do to prove how old that person actually is. But heay, the fact that minors generally don't have credit cards sure is a handy-dandy public relations score for them.

    And oh joy, now the porn industry wants to do as much as they can to make Google suppress all the free competition out there. Thanks but no thanks. Google is merely building a "phone book" of addresses out there and it is not reasonable or possible for them to play policemen judging each site out there if it is "acceptable" or "not acceptable", and it is not reasonable or sane to demand Google play policemen on who is forbidden to look up what phone numbers in the phone book.

    Google's already going above and beyond what they need to do in offering their "safesearch" option and (if I'm not mistaken) defaulting it to on. No demand or expectation that safesearch is supposed to be accurate, just a "whatever effort we felt like putting into a maybe useful but not necessarily accurate automated grouping" sort of thing, and an if you don't like the results don't use it sort of thing.

    -

    --
    - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
    1. Re:All about Free Porn by CodeBuster · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Ah, no. I think they have been doing what they can do deter non-paying people from accessing adult material. Bingo. This is a clear case of rent seeking on the part of Vivid. They don't like all of the competition in their industry so they are lobbying the government to throw up barriers to entry by imposing regulation and licensing. This is the same reason why cosmetologists are licensed, taxicabs have medallions, and labor unions lobby for the minimum wage. They claim to be concerned about workers, customers, or even the children but in reality they are concerned with protecting themselves from competition and using the power of the government to do it.
  12. Vivid by king-manic · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Hirsch is the CEO of a mostly offline porn company. Vivids web presence isn't as great as say Girls Gone Wild or even Playboy or Penthouse. Thus he has an economic interest in minimizing competition for porn entertainment dollars by reducing Internet porn availability.

    --
    "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
  13. PLUG THE HOLES! by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Pun intended.

    "No free peeks" says profit-oriented smut-peddler!

    --
    "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
    Never been known to fail..."
  14. "Adult content"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    OK, first define "adult content".

    Is a website showing how to check for breast cancer "adult content"? How about a website describing circumcision? How about a website advocating safe sex or masturbation? Or a description of the physical changes of puberty? Pictures of Holocaust violence? A description of the Rape of Nanking? Nudity in National Geographic? Wikipedia?

    I can think of a million things that some parents would love their children to have access to, and which other parents would still want the guv'men' to regulate to death.

    Adding an .XXX tld would not stop one child from being able to access things their parents didn't want, and since we probably can't find even two people who agree what "adult site operators" means, it will simply turn into a witchhunt.

  15. When did sex become a bad thing? by mirshafie · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I don't see why children should be saved from sex pictures. First of all, they are free to leave the site whenever they want. Nothiing they see on a porn site will be so bad that it will have a serious negative effect on them. It's weird. Many parents refuse that their children have vaccine shots, other introduce their kids to weapons, and many parents want their kids schools to serve unhealthy food. Don't tell me you're trying to protect the children, you old moralist hags. I'm sure a bit wanking would do everybody good.

    1. Re:When did sex become a bad thing? by mirshafie · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I just read about that video on Wikipedia and decided I would never want to watch it. Which is why I never will. There's the problem with people on internet communities that get a kick out of luring people to sites like that, but that's what moderators are for. The internet is of course full of awful pictures; for example you can find pictures of people that have died in accidents (now that's sick). Personally I find that much more disturbing than people that eat vomit and feces, but I'm not the one to draw the line. I wouldn't want my kids watching that sort of thing either, on the other hand there are many things that I wouldn't want my kids to do.

  16. I don't want a child proofed internet. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I really don't. I don't want an internet where all 'adult content' - whatever that is interpreted to mean - is limited to some small, quarantined corner of the internet. Such a system would be easily abused because over-zealous prudes would immediately begin demanding that ISP's block out the .xxx TLD for the sake of the children. Then we'd have no 'adult conent' on the internet at all - which is exactly what many of these nuts want.

    That leads to another question: What is adult content? Is it media depicting sex? Is it n00dz? Is is violent imagery? Is is simply anything we don't want kids to see? You'll find that many people have very different ideas about just what exactly constitutes 'adult content.'

    Even assuming it could be widely agreed exactly what needed to go into the adult section of the internet and further assuming that you could force everyone to migrate there (US laws are not global, btw), you'd be setting a bad president. You'd essentially be saying that information needs to be 'kid safe' by default. You'd be saying that it's not OK for adults to partake of 'adult' discussion involving 'adult' content, unless they're in some kind of box where we can be reasonably sure kids won't overhear it or see it.

    I don't want to live in a world like that. I don't want to be herded off to some periphery whenever I have non-G rated thoughts just because somebody wants to scream "Think of the children!" It is children who should be kept in a isolated, protected place. It is children who should have their options limited and freedoms curtailed. It is children who shouldn't be allowed to just wander wherever they please. To hell with child proofing the internet.

    If you want to set up a safe zone for kids and control the content there then that's fine. In fact, it was done. The .kids TLD was a complete flop and has very few sites in it because no body in their right mind wants a G-rated internet.

  17. Comcast deja vu.... by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Just by reading the summary, I'm reminded of what someone (was it the FCC?) compared Comcast bittorrent throttling and to horse races. It's all about competition and monopolistic practices.

    I think this porn king, whoever he is and I don't care, isn't worried so much about free peeks on *his* servers but rather about "social networking" style sites and other collections that "take away" profits from him.

    So what this is really about is old-model media distribution versus new business models. This guy gets rich by selling content, and obviously he's "suffering" from the thousands of amateur sites available on the web. Welcome to the 21st century.

    Going back to the "think of the children" thread, the .xxx suffix was a nice solution IMHO.