Microsoft Family Safety Filter Blocks Google

mike.rimov writes "I saw that part of the brand new Windows Live package is the Family Safety Filter, so I decided to give it a spin. Turned it on, set it to 'basic filtering' (their lowest level), and went to Google ... oops, it blocks Google! So I logged into the settings and added Google as an exception. Google still wouldn't come up. Just in case, I turned off the family filter: voila, Google. As we all know, 'Don't be evil' is not part of Microsoft's motto! Oh yeah — and with the filter on, Microsoft's own search engine, live.com comes up." Anomaly?

Comments

First Post!

[GeorgeMonroy]

Google is evil so thank you Microsoft!

Re:First Post!

[Foofoobar]

Between Microsoft and Google, I vote for the lesser evil. Go Google!

Re:First Post!

[Idiomatick]

Voting for the lesser evil is a lie and a sin against the libertarian party. The only right answer is to NEVER use the internet.

Re:First Post!

[El Lobo]

No, seriously. Gotta love SlashDot. Just submit an anecdotal story (with anti Microsoft content of course) and it may be published in the main page without any research or the minimal am mount of testing. This filter is installed in every single computer in my kid's school and no... Googgle is not blocked. Asked the technician that installed it and... no, out of the box: big G is not blocked either. Of course THIS anecdote would never get published here.

Way to go /., keep throwing your reputation down (not that is there any serious reputation left in this place, ow ever was for that matter).

Re:First Post!

[larry bagina]

Google is only free if your privacy is worth nothing.

Re:First Post!

[Unordained]

Yet we use the site. Is that because the reputation is perhaps not so much embedded in the top-down editorial process as in the bottom-up moderation process? I came to this story trusting that I would find, within the first few top-rated comments, something indicating whether this anecdote was factually verified, and then plenty of discussion on the usefulness of filters and somewhere below a meta-discussion about the place of authority (Microsoft) in filtering. I did not, however, open up slashdot expecting to see nothing but stories whose summaries I could read and trust to be factually correct at first glance, the way I might (incorrectly) with hard news sites.

Re:First Post!

[sakdoctor]

We could always use Ask Jeeves

Re:First Post!

[Hurricane78]

False dichotomy. I vote for none of them. In fact I do not play the game of voting, set-up by you, at all.
You do not *need* any search engine. You need food, water, shelter, other humans, and something fun to do. Everything else is optional and replaceable fluff.

Re:First Post!

[coopaq]

Thanks for reminding me.

http://www.google.com/search?q=food
http://www.google.com/search?q=water
http://www.google.com/search?q=shelter
http://www.google.com/search?q=people
http://www.google.com/search?q=midget wrestling

Re:First Post!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm suprised that nobody has pointed out the obvious: If I were a Microsoft marketing drone, I would post this sort of viral story on Slashdot, knowing that a large portion of the curious, tech savy crowd would immediatly run out, install said application, and test it. Great way to virally market the product, and then get a reversal on the negitive view point to some positive reaction.

Re:First Post!

[Foofoobar]

I know I definitely didn't need to read your post. Let's start there. :)

Re:First Post!

[hairyfeet]

Nah, they BOTH suck with the evilness. Vote for the underdog. Go Yahoo! And be sure to check out the 'more tab(it is that little blue tab just below the search box) as it makes finding related searches MUCH quicker IMHO than MSFT or Google. It is just a shame the guys that made the GUI didn't think to label the damned button.

But it gives you the "more" links on the left and related concepts on the right. VERY handy and an easy way to drill down to what you are looking for. So much better than the 'more' button at the top of Google that just gives you more Google crap like Google blogs. So support the underdog. Go Yahoo!

Re:First Post!

[frank_adrian314159]

That's Ask.com to you, if you please.

Re:First Post!

[nmosfet]

yeah, tell me about it. If only people would vote for the most evil like they should, use libertarians would be in office by now.

Re:First Post!

[Golddess]

Google is only free if your privacy is worth nothing.

Which, well, it is.

Said the Anonymous Coward.

:P

Re:First Post!

[Anachragnome]

Interesting.

I simply make sure the tools my daughters need are in their head, namely the ability to use common sense and a STRONG sense of self-preservation.

It just seems to me that giving them a tool to make them safe makes more sense then taking tools away to prevent harm.

Well...

[mc1138]

It probably wasn't intentional, most likely they pushed developers to focus first on microsoft based search engines, but really, I also find it hard to believe not a single person would have tried google first. I doubt it was a big conspiracy, but rather they knew about it but didn't want to spend anytime fixing it.

Re:Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

I find that hard to believe. Microsoft has been spending a lot of money because they have a very small share of the search engine market.

They haven't been able to do that. Their search and crawling seems to be as bad as it's ever been. Their crawling especially.

If you can't crawl properly, why would people bother to use the search?

There's a small chance it's not intentional, but given their history of using their monopoly on the desktop to further other products, they don't deserve the benefit of the doubt.

Re:Well...

[John Hasler]

> It's boorish at best and plainly poor software testing at worst.

We already know it's a Microsoft product.

Re:Well...

[plague3106]

Maybe that's because the people you blanket label as "MS apologists" aren't actually apologists, but reasonable & rational people that actually evaluate MS products on their merits. It seems at /. you're deemed an apologist if you ever defend MS on anything.

If you want to see group think in action, look at your own post, and the posts that show up when anyone dare criticize linux.

Re:Well...

[Lemmy Caution]

The GP - which is probably a troll - does betray the kind of thinking that has become dangerously infectious in the US today: utter partisanship. They think that you must either be a loyal defender of a thing, or its relentless enemy. We see it too often in politics (and yes, it's an American thing, at least to the extent you see in political blogs.)

MS is probably doing something dodgy here, something that should set off anti-trust alarms. It's just too convenient that their biggest rival happens to get caught in the filter. But I've been critiqued as being a Microsoft apologist for, for example, saying good things about Office.

Re:Well...

[causality]

The GP - which is probably a troll - does betray the kind of thinking that has become dangerously infectious in the US today: utter partisanship. They think that you must either be a loyal defender of a thing, or its relentless enemy. We see it too often in politics (and yes, it's an American thing, at least to the extent you see in political blogs.)

MS is probably doing something dodgy here, something that should set off anti-trust alarms. It's just too convenient that their biggest rival happens to get caught in the filter. But I've been critiqued as being a Microsoft apologist for, for example, saying good things about Office.

That's actually exactly what I was speaking against. If you ever wonder why that problem of partisanship doesn't just go away in spite of all its glaring and obvious flaws, this is why. It's difficult or impossible to point it out and speak against it without the assumption (and that's what it is, a baseless assumption) being made that there are only two possible "sides", so if you speak against one side you must be a member of the other side. Therefore, in the minds of several people who have responded to me, I spoke against the more religious MS advocates; therefore, I must be a religious Linux/other advocate and there is no other position I could be coming from. That's more of the linear, one-dimensional, two-points-and-a-line spectrum thinking that you see in politics (something I have repeatedly spoken against for some years now, by the way). Subscribing to that type of thinking amounts to self-limitation. Aren't false dichotomies great? Check my response (in this thread) to plague3106 for a more thorough response to this.

Now, I suppose you could say that I could have done a better job explaining how I felt. However, I have been on Slashdot and other public forums for some years now and I have found that if people want to make assumptions about you, in the absence of evidence, they are almost always going to do it no matter what you say. As a matter of fact, anyone who had perused my posting history or otherwise tried to learn the slightest thing about me would have found something quite the opposite of what you have described. I used to make the mistake of trying to word my posts in such a way as to make them more resistant to this sort of demagoguing. Then I realized that not only was it ineffective, it also amounted to me assuming the burden of someone else's self-imposed limitations.

That is, people tend to believe what they want to believe. That's why it's foolish to care too much about how you appear in the eyes of others. The only way to avoid catching flak once in a while is to never say anything remotely controversial; that price is too high.

Re:Well...

[pohl]

This is most certainly not intentional simply because it's so dumb and in-your-face.

You must have never seen the Gates/Seinfeld commercials they unintentionally made.

This is perfectly valid

[Oxy the moron]

Google is unsafe... for Microsoft's monopolies.

Re:This is perfectly valid

[Thelasko]

Sure, it blocks Google... but it does it safely.

It's the Os

[camperdave]

It's the "O"s in Google. They look like boobies.

Re:It's the Os

[Yvan256]

What good is the joke if you don't give a link to the picture (NQSFW).

Re:It's the Os

[ChunderDownunder]

Not to mention the fact it's pronounced 'Go-ogle'.

Re:It's the Os

[commodore64_love]

Yuck. If she bent over, she'd resemble a cow with hanging udders. Blech. Give me natural As or Bs anyday rather than fakies.

Re:It's the Os

[Dmala]

Yuck. If she bent over, she'd resemble a cow with hanging udders. Blech. Give me natural As or Bs anyday rather than fakies.

If you're the typical Slashdot reader, you probably have natural As or Bs already.
http://www.instantrimshot.com

Sorry, how could I resist?

Re:It's the Os

[Brian Feldman]

Yuck. If she bent over, she'd resemble a cow with hanging udders. Blech. Give me natural As or Bs anyday rather than fakies.

If you had actually seen natural ones at some point, you'd likely recognize that Bea Flora's breasts are anything but fake :P

Probably intentional

[W2k]

Just a wild guess: Perhaps the family filter talks to Live.com in order to filter "inappropriate" results out. Other search engines not owned by Microsoft don't support this integration, so the filter blocks them as they would otherwise be a trivial way around the filter.

Re:Probably intentional

[FrostDust]

That does make a lot of sense, it is probably the most likely explanation next to "Oops, we made a typo."

It doesn't make sense that whitelisting Google still results in it being blocked, as the summary said.

I'd be very surprised if they block other search engines out of competitive reasons, because they've been getting hammered by the EU for various anti-compition violations over the past few years. In IE7, the startup wizard gave the user an easy way to select something besides Windows Live search as their default search engine if desired, so its not like these concerns are foreign to Microsoft.

Re:Probably intentional

[Sockatume]

Let's not forget that the Google cache would provide a way around the filtering for every single website in its index, if Google's added as an exception. I wonder if it blocks archive.org.

Re:Probably intentional

[SailorSpork]

Other search engines not owned by Microsoft don't support this integration, so the filter blocks them as they would otherwise be a trivial way around the filter.

This seems reasonable. So it wasn't a devious attempt to block a competitor, just a very rigid safety feature that is unmotivated to integrate competitive products. Unfortunately, this will very likely drive a large chunk of people away from using it, and will make a lot of users think that MS is just being a dick.

Unfortunately, some parents may just turn it on for their kids without testing it thoroughly and not realize what their safety filter is locking their kids into.

Re:Probably intentional

[kimmp]

In my department at work Google cache is blocked but Google itself is not. It's rather frustrating, really, I wish I could image search. Fortunately when we do get those few pictures at the top of the search results when we add "pictures" or "images".

Re:Probably intentional

[commodore64_love]

>>> [Fortunately,] this will very likely drive a large chunk of people away from using it, and will make a lot of users think that MS is just being a dick.

Fixed. ;-)

And I'm not just being anti-MS here. The computer industry was a lot better when we had multiple manufacturers (Atari, TI, Commodore, Apple, IBM) and multiple OSes (GEOS, TOS, Workbench, MS-DOS, MacOS) because it promoted innovation. Since Microsoft became dominant circa 1998, innovation has slowed to a crawl, and I think the weakening of Microsoft so people can explore alternative companies would be a good thing ("fortunate").

Re:Probably intentional

[John Hasler]

> This seems reasonable. So it wasn't a devious attempt to block a competitor, just a very
> rigid safety feature that is unmotivated to integrate competitive products.

Yes, it's always best to have a plausible cover story, isn't it?

Re:Probably intentional

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I'd be very surprised if they block other search engines out of competitive reasons, because they've been getting hammered by the EU for various anti-compition[sic] violations over the past few years.

Yeah, but few of those have been effective at stopping MS from continuing said antitrust actions and MS has committed numerous new, unaddressed violations of the law. They're still making more money breaking the law and paying fines, than complying. Why do you think they'd comply now?

Re:Probably intentional

[xouumalperxe]

My guess is Microsoft didn't want to risk Google accidentally returning adult material web pages in the search list, and hence it's blocked.

So they keep silently blocking google even after you've whitelisted it? I'm not accusing Microsoft of malfeasance just yet, but it's very shoddy worksmanship that they'd implement a "we'll block google by default" thing, then either silently override whiltelisting of it "because it can work around the filter", or botch the whitelisting implementation altogether. On top of that, such a bug/feature/whatever still had to make it past QA.

Re:Probably intentional

[Chris Mattern]

The EU keeps fining Microsoft for the same thing.

When Microsoft never stops doing said thing, that's to be expected.

Re:Probably intentional

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

The EU keeps fining Microsoft for the same thing. They just make shit up and say "Ok, actually, you have to pay 70 million MORE, then you're free". The EU is treating MS like a piggy bank, regardless of any violations they've actually committed.

I disagree. Everytime the EU has fined MS it has been for either a separate incident (they've committed antitrust abuse dozens of times and only gone to trial for a few of them) or because MS was still refusing to comply with a court order for them to change their behavior with regard to a particular act.

The one you're probably thinking of is their server/desktop APIs. The EU told them to document all communication between the two products such that other server makers could compete fairly and not be at any disadvantage in creating servers that interoperate with Windows on the desktop. MS, used to dealing with the US courts, first punted on the issue, providing a meager amount of documentation which was both unusable and in many instances completely wrong. The courts told them it was insufficient. They then claimed complying with the law was too hard. The courts didn't buy it, so MS stalled and appealed and ran expensive PR campaigns and tried to get US diplomats to change the minds of the EU, all the while racking up bigger and bigger fines for continued noncompliance. Finally, they provided documentation that was adequate and the courts tallied up their fines, sent them a bill, and that has been the end of it. Mind you they are still responsible for keeping that documentation up to date, so they could be fined again if they fail to meet those legal requirements.

Basically, I think your opinion on the matter is either uninformed or completely disingenuous. I don't know if you're a deluded fanboy or an astroturfer.

Anomaly?

[omar.sahal]

Anomaly?
I dont't know mike.rimov but the word anomaly in the English Oxford dictionary is defined as

• noun (pl. anomalies) something that deviates from what is standard or normal.

so no its not an anomaly for Microsoft, if thats what you getting at. No news here move along

Cause you can google to find you way around it ...

[BitZtream]

This is a classic filter issue, and a prime example of why using filters like this is a retarded waste of time.

A simply Google search probably will tell you how to work around the filter completely, as such Google is a banned website.

This isn't anything new, all of the filters out there do this sort of thing, this one just seems evil since its Microsoft blocking Google, but it happens with all of them.

The real solution is to realize that the person you're trying to prevent from seeing stuff on the Internet is going to find a way to look at it anyway. If you're doing this to stop kids from looking at something then you better keep them locked in a basement cause they'll just go somewhere else to find what they want. You can bet one of their friends doesn't have a porn blocker.

The solution to these problems for parents is to actually be a parent and remember that YOU are responsible for your children. Not Microsoft, not the computer, not your ISP, not the Internet, YOU. You can spend an entire lifetime trying to stop them from doing something and they'll spend their entire lifetime showing you how you can't. Unless of course you just ignore anything they do when you aren't watching them. Perhaps you should try a little education instead.

adsense too?

[gEvil (beta)]

From a post made in December, it also apparently blocks AdSense ads (which would make sense, since they're part of Gooooogle). Anybody else know what this "Safety Filter" blocks?

This is a really biased summary.

[gcnaddict]

Why is it that Slashdot posts such opinionated summaries at times? This is worse than the typical Apple bashing that goes on. It's also rather immature.

Re:This is a really biased summary.

[Sockatume]

Unfortunately Slashdot's content is reader-submitted, and it's a rather immature readership. Normally only the summaries are reader-submitted by, you know how it is, slow news day, might as well just pass off a comment as an article.

Eh?

[Computershack]

I'd love to know WTF the author has done. It's never blocked Google on the three lappies its installed on here.

what about other search engines?

[MyDixieWrecked]

I'd imagine that they're not intentionally blocking google because they're a competitor (although it could be a contributing factor). I would think that they consider Live.com to be more compatible with family filter and google allows access to cached pages which the family filter may not be able to block.

Of course, one way that MS could show good faith would be to open up the family filter's API in some way so as to let it play nice with google and allow google to disable cached pages for users of the filter.

Re:what about other search engines?

[GatesDA]

Actually, FSS does have specific Google support: it's allowed by default, but counts as "Adult Content" if safe search is off. That's why it's blocked for the submitter, and why adding it as an exception doesn't work.

Possible related to Google filtering options?

[nlewis]

I seem to recall a much older filtering software package (I don't recall which offhand - DansGuardian, maybe?) that will block Google if you have disabled "SafeSearch" in the Advanced Preferences - that is, if you have it set to "Do not filter my search results."

Re:Possible related to Google filtering options?

[nlewis]

Following up on my own post, yes it is DansGuardian that can be configured to block Google searches if Google SafeSearch is turned off. So maybe Microsoft's filter is taking a similar approach? The obvious thing to try is to turn off the MS filter, check your Google preferences and make sure SafeSearch is enabled, then turn the filter back on and see if the problem persists.

Re:Possible related to Google filtering options?

[TechnoFrood]

Actually DansGuardian will let you force safe search to be on, the default filter lists have a regex url replacement that forces safe search. You can even make searches for Zac Efron become searches for David Dickinson, which can be quite funny when you are running Dans in a school.

thats nothing.

[nimbius]

I tried to visit redhat.com and a chair shot out the back of my machine!

Anomally

[RemoWilliams84]

Anomally?

Sounds like smart marketing to me. Just block your biggest competitor.

I wonder if they blocked Mozilla too?

Blogger's navigation bar was blocked

[Kligat]

The navigation bar of Google's Blogger website was blocked for me. Random things were blocked that weren't noticeable as missing, popping up every time, so it felt like spyware. I tried to turn it off through Ctrl+Alt+Delete (actually, Ctrl+Shift+Esc since I use Vista). The process would not let itself die and restarted itself over and over. Then it blocked Wikipedia, I think before or after I went to "Stop Service." I asked if the owner of the computer meant to install it, and sure enough, it was hidden in some automatic update crap. The same automatic update crap rolls back my graphics drivers to the lazily outdated computer manufacturer-approved one, rather than the newest Intel one. The former has a problem with rendering bumpmaps on 3D objects so that if you're looking at an object with a bumpmap in front of an object with a bumpmap, both bumpmaps are rendered on the object nearest the camera. The latter fixes it. It also used to replace my wireless card driver with a driver from the same manufacturer meant for wirelessly communicating with other computers in a local area network, though this hasn't been a problem since I stopped using that card.

Re:Blogger's navigation bar was blocked

[XMLsucks]

I'm so happy I use Apple.

Re:Anomaly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Rhetorical

• adjective, (of a question) asked for effect or to make a statement rather than to obtain an answer.

Sure...

[Greyfox]

You could accidentally search for "Live goat Porn" on google. Microsoft's search engine doesn't index any porn (Or much of anything else,) that's why no one uses it.

Re:Cause you can google to find you way around it

[commodore64_love]

>>>If you're doing this to stop kids from looking at something

I don't understand the big deal. So kids see nudity? So what? The human body is nothing to be ashamed of. Although I don't want my kids to see porn (sex), if they did would it be so horrible? By the time they're 13 they'll know what sex is anyway, and even if you shelter them completely, they'd better have SOME idea what they're supposed to do on their wedding night else I'll never get grandchildren! ;-)

American society seems to be built on the notion of keeping kids ignorant ("innocent") which is exactly the opposite of what our jobs as parents is meant to do. We're supposed to be teaching children about the world and preparing them to deal with it, not hiding it from them.

Re:Cause you can google to find you way around it

[King_TJ]

Really, it depends on the age of the user though.

For example, I have a 6 year old daughter who has discovered the wonders of YouTube videos on my iPhone. She knows how to do a basic search for things she wants to see, and finds all sorts of little cartoon segments and music videos for things she likes.

Unfortunately, there are also issues like her last search for "Easter bunny" bringing up a Charlie Brown Easter cartoon, overdubbed with all sorts of profanity, violent and racist remarks, in an attempt to be humorous.

She was still too young to understand all of it, but I had to wrestle the phone away from her before my mom overheard what it was saying and went ballistic.... She proceeded to try to find the SAME video 3 or 4 times after that, because she wanted to watch "Charlie Brown Easter" on there.

I found myself *really* wishing the iPhone had a family-friendly filter of some sort for YouTube viewing on it.

The younger kids really aren't going to go searching Google and figuring out how to use proxy sites to get around filters, etc. etc. All you really want for them is a basic "barrier" to things you don't want them accidentally stumbling onto. If it blocks known ad banner type sites that inject malware and so forth, that's a plus as well.

Re:Probably user error

[gmuslera]

You are right, every problem with Microsoft products must be attributed to the user, none is Microsoft's fault.

Filters are stupid anyway

[kheldan]

They should rename it the "Parents That Can't Be Bothered To Pay Attention Filter" instead. The question "Do you want the government raising your children?" has already been put to the public, and the answer is obvious: a resounding "No!". Now I put this question to you all: Do you want Microsoft raising your children? Turn off the damned net-nanny and actually pay attention to what your kids are doing, damnit!

Intentional or not is not the issue and problem

[surfingmarmot]

We have been led to believe Microsoft does extensive testing of products and features. Even if the blocking was unintentional, certainly they must have noticed it and the fact they don't block there own server. As a result, they should have either, white-listed Google or at least expressly and clearly stated Google was being blocked. Given Microsoft's past history, this kind of "aw shucks look it blocks Google but let's just mirk and ignore it" behavior is not acceptable and is predatory in nature in keeping with past behavior. Convicted monopolists are held to higher standards than average companies because they are on parole.

Ballmer Family Rules

[CodeBuster]

Didn't Steve Ballmer say that using an iPod or Google in his house is a punishable offense?

Re:Cause you can google to find you way around it

[cptdondo]

Hmmm.... Whitelisting might work in a corporate environment where you want to tie people down to your website and a handful of providers. But it's not practical for a household; my kids do research on the web for their schoolwork. By definition, that's undefined; they're exploring.

So I use openDNS with moderate settings. We've talked the filtering in place and they've found some sites that they need access to that are blocked. (openDNS sometimes prudishly classes sites about sexuality as pornography. I disagree.) If they are skilled enough to compromise my DHCP and DNS servers, then we'll have a serious talk about a future in IT. I guess that they could get a list of IP addresses and enter those. But for now openDNS works.

Works for Me

[pgn674]

I tried it on my own machine. On Web Filtering Basic, it allows www.google.com, and on Strict, it does not. It logs my access to Google if Activity Reporting is on. It looks like Strict uses a white list, so blocking Google can be reasonably expected by a user.

And just why not?

[macraig]

Since I can use Google to find some really nasty anal porn and, what's even worse, those awful sinful bittorrents, why wouldn't the Family Safety Filter block it? Of course unless my parents lock me in the basement I can still find porn and all sorts of life-shortening stuff everywhere else. Since I'm so driven to get this mind-wrecking stuff, maybe they should lock me in the basement?

It operates in two modes, blacklist and whitelist.

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows Live Family Safety operates in two modes: basic and strict.

In BASIC mode, it uses a BLACKLIST to filter adult web content (porn). This mode is intended for teenagers, guests, etc. Google is available.

In STRICT mode it uses a WHITELIST limited to a small list of children's sites (Nick, Barney, Barbie, etc) plus custom sites the parent can add. This is designed for young children who really aren't going to care that they can't visit Google, nor CNN.com, nor Slashdot. This mode is to keep kids entertained.

The author of the post was probably running in STRICT mode and didn't realize the purpose of the software.

Re:It operates in two modes, blacklist and whiteli

[Yuan-Lung]

Windows Live Family Safety operates in two modes: basic and strict... ...The author of the post was probably running in STRICT mode and didn't realize the purpose of the software.

From TFP:

...so I decided to give it a spin. Turned it on, set it to 'basic filtering' (their lowest level), and went to Google...

Wait a minute... This is important...

[TheNetAvenger]

Ok, the Summary is #1 wrong, and #2 people here have no idea what the hell they talking about.

The FAMILY SAFTEY is working as it is supposed to, as it is designed to setup for your freaking KIDS...

On Basic, it allows Google.com, and that is working as intended.

On Strict, it does not, as some parents wouldn't want their kids using Google that WILL RETURN DONKEY PORN VIDEOS because there is no way to intelligently filter the Google results.

If Google doesn't want to be blocked on Strict, they can provide RSS OPENSEARCH features, like everyone else is doing. However Google is intent of refusing to provide RSS OpenSearch features.

The BROKEN here is Google not supporting a web standard in their search engine results and method of returning results.

As for the whole MS is keeping people from Google, this is insane. They have no locks on Live search even for IE users (letting people use any search engine easily as their default Browser search engine).

MS has even had to 'code' around Google's lack of standards in the OpenSearch and other areas to allow 'Search Tips' and dropdown features from Google Search, since Google doesn't provide the standard 'hint' or 'search tip' features that ARE a standard and other search engines and even sites like Wikipedia provide inherently.

Google is the ones locking the doors here, in several ways, and yet someone the 'intelligent' people at SlashDot haven't even noticed any of this going on? Go look up Search Connector and RSS Search feeds, and RSS Search filtered results. Everyone and their dog supports them, except Google.

They are even integrated in Windows7 Explorer so users can search inside a Folder or Open/Save Dialog box and get web pages, video, images, links, etc from just about any online search engine or provider of content EXCEPT GOOGLE because they refuse to support RSS OpenSearch and RSS OpenSearch Filtering.

This time it comes down to MS doing the right thing, and Google intentionally not 'playing nice with others' and by proxy it breaks the abilities of the Live Family Safety features on the strict setting. If Google doesn't want to be excluded, provide freaking intelligent results or results that can be ensured to not have donkey goat porn, which apparently Google can't do or doesn't want to do effectively.

This time it is MS providing the standard web search technology and is the OPEN search engine when it comes to interfacing with all the OPEN standards.

Re:Wait a minute... This is important...

[PhxBlue]

Clippy: You appear to be spreading misinformation about your competitor's products. Would you like assistance?

If Google doesn't want to be excluded, provide freaking intelligent results or results that can be ensured to not have donkey goat porn, which apparently Google can't do or doesn't want to do effectively.

Umm ... you mean like SafeSearch?

Re:Wait a minute... This is important...

[LionMage]

I wish I had the mod points to give you. As usual, circletimessquare spouts off against a particular dislike for some entity, advocates for something that nobody apparently cares about in the real world, and conveniently ignores the facts on the ground... like the inconvenient fact that nobody else (who counts) supports this supposed RSS Opensearch standard. Including Windows Live Search.

I mean, how sensible is it to pillory Google for not supporting some externally-generated standard, which would supposedly make them more inter-operable with Microsoft's net-nanny product, when Microsoft itself doesn't support the standard in their primary search engine? That neither Yahoo nor Ask.com support this standard is just icing on the cake.

For the love of all that is just, can someone mod up the parent?

Makes Sense

[rwrife]

Makes sense to me since you can get around most content filters with Google's cache.

Bork! Bork! Bork!

[DynaSoar]

Remember when Microsoft pulled the stunt of changing MSN so it gave Opera users a broken page instead? Opera retaliated by releasing a version that went around Microsoft's block and rendered the MSN pages in the 'language' of the Muppet Show's Swedish Chef. http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/1584361

If Google still had a pair they could cause their search engine to detect when IE is being used and return all Microsoft related results with 'weasel weasel weasel' inserted in the summary and/or subsequent page views.

As for the earlier response that accused Google of being at fault for not following standards, we've heard that song before. It translates from MS-Marketoid to English and comes out as "not following what Microsoft says standards should be, which usually differs from what the rest of the world says." As for returning results with donkey porn, a Live Search for 'donkey porn' returns a t-short company that uses copulating donkeys as their logo, and shows t-shirts saying "You're F*cking Out" and "Jizz In My Pants". I take it Microsoft has decided that these results are suitable for kids. I don't know which is worse, the hypocrisy of allowing ads with donkeys fucking (though not of non-ad fucking donkeys; ads are too important to block I guess) or the paternalism they show in taking the decision out of the hands of parents of what is suitable for their kids and what is not.