Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Bing Gets Porn Domain To Filter Explicit Content

Posted by kdawson on from the still-no-sex-in-india dept.

sopssa writes "Bing has set up a separate domain just for porn images and videos. '[The] general manager of Microsoft Bing said in a blog post that potentially explicit images and video content now will be coming from one separate 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.' When Bing was first launched, there was some online chatter about explicit images popping up when videos were 'previewed' in the search results. This means the thumbnails and videos are served from that domain, allowing easy filter of them in corporate and school networks. Users still normally use www.bing.com. Instead of heavily filtering the results, this is quite a good move."

28 of 200 comments (clear)

  1. Awesome! by SupremoMan · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm tired of non-explicit images ruining my Google searches!

    1. Re:Awesome! by machine321 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Most pornography contains people not wearing their costumes.

  2. Hrmmm by Narkov · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is the reverse possible? I.e. explicit content only??!! :)

    1. Re:Hrmmm by _merlin · · Score: 4, Informative

      Just tried it - explicit.bing.com gives you SFW and NSFW - using that domain is just like saying "switch off safe search". AFAICT, there's no "unsafe search" option.

    2. Re:Hrmmm by _merlin · · Score: 4, Informative

      There's one of those for Google here.

  3. How does Microsoft define what is 'explicit'? by JustinKSU · · Score: 5, Funny

    How does Microsoft define what is 'explicit'?

    That would be an interesting job. Microsoft Smut Engineer. Wait, I think that's what they already call MS Office developers...

    1. Re:How does Microsoft define what is 'explicit'? by l2718 · · Score: 5, Informative

      The easiest way is using the "keywords" META tag which I'm sure is used by most explicit sites to self-identify. The problem of determining the semantic content of a site (not to speak of interpreting images) is hard, but "Safe searches" of various kinds have been around for a long time so I'm sure there's been some progress on the text processing side. I doubt computer vision has reached the stage when it's easy to identify a nude.

  4. Fear of MS Bob Hope *grips* Google by David+Gerard · · Score: 5, Funny

    Microsoft today heeded the lessons of technological history, taking the popular "preview porn videos in the search engine" feature and turning its Bob Hope search engine into a porn finder at the address explicit.bobhope.microsoft.com.

    "It worked for VHS over Beta, porn sites were leading innovators in online payments. It's a natural synergy," said Steve Ballmer, looking somewhat sweaty and flushed.

    Porn sites are some of the keenest users of Microsoft technologies, using the undocumented interfaces in Internet Explorer to install helpful toolbars and bulk email tools on users' systems. "It's all about tools. Developers, developers, developers, developers!"

    Windows 7 final will include a "boot straight into porn" mode. "We found that was what users really wanted in an operating system." It will include the Storm, Conficker and FBI botnets as standard. "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."

    Mr Ballmer promised that Microsoft will, as always, deliver. "Unlike porn sites, we don't just tease — we really will fuck you. Totally."

    --
    http://rocknerd.co.uk
  5. good idea by ILongForDarkness · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I hate it when I type pretty much anything in for an image search in google and I end up with porn. Okay when I'm at home but when I'm at work ... not so cool.

    1. Re:good idea by SpinyNorman · · Score: 4, Informative

      This Bing change won't help with that.

      I don't expect that the image or video results you get with Bing vs Google at any preferred level of "safe search" filtering are much different, and that's not going to change with this announcement.

      All the Bing change does, rather belatedly, is stop overriding parental controls (Open DNS, Net Nanny, etc) that would block porn domains. What happens up until now is that Bing self-hosts all it's image/video thumbnails from it's own servers - porn included - and starts to play these thumbnail videos automatically - direct from Microsoft's servers - when you mouseover them. Since the videos are coming from a Microsoft domain rather than a porn domain, parental porn filters are bypassed.

      All the Bing change does is to move Microsoft's porn video reviews from bing.com to microsofts-hard-core-porn-server.bing.com so that Open DNS, Net Nanny, etc can once again be used to block this stuff.

    2. Re:good idea by SpinyNorman · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yep - this is just the thumbnails on the Bing search results page.

    3. Re:good idea by pbhj · · Score: 4, Insightful

      [...] Bing self-hosts all it's image/video thumbnails from it's own servers - porn included - and starts to play these thumbnail videos automatically - direct from Microsoft's servers - when you mouseover them. Since the videos are coming from a Microsoft domain rather than a porn domain, parental porn filters are bypassed.

      All the Bing change does is to move Microsoft's porn video reviews from bing.com to microsofts-hard-core-porn-server.bing.com so that Open DNS, Net Nanny, etc can once again be used to block this stuff.

      When are they going to be sued for copyright infringement then?

      It can't be long now surely. Everyone go and search bing for RIAA managed songs on video. Perhaps we can get these snakes to simultaneously eat each other??!

  6. just use booble by lecithin · · Score: 4, Informative

    go to booble.com

    --
    It could be worse, it could be Monday.
    1. Re:just use booble by _merlin · · Score: 4, Informative

      On your advice, I just tried booble. I have to say, it's complete rubbish. For each search I tried, all the hits on the first page were advertising, and none of them were even advertising anything remotely related to what I searched for. If you're using a search engine, you want relevant results - not just random advertising.

    2. Re:just use booble by trollocks · · Score: 4, Funny

      That's funny, it worked perfectly when I searched for "your mom"!

  7. I'm anal (and not in the fun way) so... by Starayo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Isn't that technically a subdomain?

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
    1. Re:I'm anal (and not in the fun way) so... by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, in this context, in my experience more a domsubain... I mean, or so I heard.

      (ok, it's lame, but this asked for a BDSM joke and I coudn't come up with a better one)

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:I'm anal (and not in the fun way) so... by n1hilist · · Score: 4, Funny

      With jokes like that, you must really be strapped for cash ;)

    3. Re:I'm anal (and not in the fun way) so... by Barny · · Score: 4, Funny

      You think an MCSE could tell the difference?

      --
      ...
      /me sighs
  8. PR Stroke of Genius! by Necroloth · · Score: 5, Funny

    What a way to get into the hearts and hands of millions of users worldwide! I think they'll be finding the usage of Bing shoot up dramatically but I'd like to see the comparison between normal Bing and xXx Bing!

    1. Re:PR Stroke of Genius! by W33B · · Score: 4, Funny

      Absolutely!

      When I first read about this yesterday my gut reaction was to immediatly go to bing and search for porn (after turning off the filtering of course)...

      ...and seeing as the speed of this thread is relatively slow for slashdot, i'm betting geeks around the world are doing the exact same thing.

      Marketing Genius....long live the porn providers!!!

  9. Google already came up with a better way by tumbleweedsi · · Score: 5, Informative

    Google just make sure they let the filtering people know how to categorise the pages based on if Safesearch is on or off. On my filter I can choose to block google images entirely or just when safesearch is off and that works just fine without needing another domain name.

    --
    Be nice, sponsor me: http://jailbreak.ragabonds.org.uk
    1. Re:Google already came up with a better way by Aladrin · · Score: 4, Informative

      That works great for individual users. This is -not- meant for individuals. This is meant for companies, schools, etc. You can block that domain at your firewall/proxy/dns/whatever and make -sure- none of your users see it, no matter what settings they choose.

      --
      "If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
  10. Re: Details on MS products by TaoPhoenix · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Come on gang, forget the snark below his post, this guy has a piece of the puzzle right! MS can lever the threat to "accidentally" label polka spotted portions of the web as "explicit" while daring the global web community to figure it out!

    While he's funny with the MS-product side, they can accept payments to label ANYTHING as explicit! Wheee!!

    --
    My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
  11. As a net admin for a school.... by jimbo-nally · · Score: 4, Informative

    I have to say that this is really nice. I just added explicit.bing.net to the list of filtered content in our SonicWall and then did an images search for breasts on bing.com with safe-search off and the images that displayed were not what I would consider porn. Many of the images, if not most, were not displayed. I will feel much better about allowing access to bing.com for our students now. Can't believe I'm saying this...but "Good job, Microsoft!"

  12. They gave it the wrong name!! by ItaliaMatt · · Score: 5, Funny

    Instead of explicit.bing.com it should have been bada.bing.com

  13. Linux filter and interesting suggestions by avn · · Score: 4, Interesting

    try typing linux into bing... after 'linu' it will give the following suggestions:
    linux
    linux windows
    linux microsoft
    linux vista
    linux commands
    ...

    while google suggests:
    linuxtoday
    linux
    linux commands
    linux mint
    linux download
    ...

    Already seems a little jaded.

  14. Microsoft blows it again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    explicit.bing.net?

    They should have gone with bada.bing.net.