Following In Bing's Footsteps, Yahoo! and Flickr Censor Porn In India

bhagwad writes "Following recent news on how Bing decided sex was too sensitive for India, Yahoo! and its associated site Flickr have decided to do the same. While it's true that this is because of India passing laws that prohibit the publication of porn, no complaint was ever launched (and never will be), and glorious Google still continues to return accurate and unbiased results. So why is Yahoo! doing this? Is it because of its tie-up with Bing? I assume this is the case. Indian ISPs have already told the government and the courts that it's not their job to restrict porn and it's technologically infeasible too. In the absence of a complaint, I can only assume that Yahoo! has decided to do this of their own volition. Given that the 'sex' search term is searched more in India than in any other country, isn't it the duty of Yahoo! to provide accurate results to its customers? It can always plausibly deny control of its results and claim that filtering porn is infeasible. Since Yahoo! already has a low search market share in India, this will drive it even lower."

Comments

Here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bing!

Re:Here it comes...

[Fluffeh]

Well, I would say that Sridhar (known as "Mike" on the switchboard) and his friend Narednra (known as "Tim" on the switchboard) who want to be more western world, what else ARE they going to search for to fit in with the rest of us?

Having said that, I only ever recall seeing one bit of bollywood porn, and it was a blooper (don't ask), so maybe it's just not around that much. Of course I might just not be that into that sort of thing and be missing out on a vast cultural experience. Better to use the simplest English description and go from there than sort through all manner of strange things eh?

Re:Here it comes...

[MightyMartian]

The whole subcontinent is littered with statues of stylized large-breasted women and phallic lingam. It seems a little odd to ban online porn, when sexuality lies at the heart of Hinduism (as it does for all the Indo-European religions).

Re:Here it comes...

[ozmanjusri]

Bing!

Not loud enough.

You're sacked!

Re:Here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is nothing wrong with porn

Sometimes I can't understand some people

Re:Here it comes...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I suspect that the ban is simple prudery at work.

However, I'd say that, rather than "seem[ing] a little odd", the connection between sexuality and Hinduism could arguably be a strong incentive for banning online porn.

Consider, for example, the matter of medieval Catholicism and vernacular bibles. The whole continent is littered with churches full of stained glass depictions of biblical scenes, and the gospels lie at the heart of Catholicism, and yet, early vernacular translators got suppressed good and hard for their trouble. This was because the centrality of the bible to Catholic practice implied acceptance of it; but also implied an established order controlling its use, dissemination, and interpretation.

Similarly, it could well be(arguing from principles, not direct anthropological evidence) that the long connection of sexuality with Hinduism means a certain acceptance of it; but almost certainly also means an established set of rules and practices concerning its use, allocation, and proper role. Pornography from all over the world, in any style you like, available swiftly and anonymously over the internet, likely stomps on the toes of at least a few of those rules and practices.

Re:Here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

debonairblog

Re:Here it comes...

[dakameleon]

Dude, there's a temple with porn carved into statues on the outside.

(And there were many more before they were destroyed by the Mughals.)

Re:Here it comes...

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Ah. Good for you!

Re:Here it comes...

[XnavxeMiyyep]

it was a blooper (don't ask)

Look, I know you said not to ask, but I really have to know the source of this now.

Re:Here it comes...

[runyonave]

The Indians gave us the Kama Sutra, which the Western world learns from. Not the other way round.

Don't know why Yahoo is censoring the word. It seems more like PR to me than anything else.

Re:Here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, real quick I see these fine (not safe for work or kids) selections:
http://video.xnxx.com/tags/bollywood
http://video.xnxx.com/tags/india
http://video.xnxx.com/tags/indian

That's, just on one site, and it's not dedicated to Bollywood porn. There is some content overlap because the tags overlap(duh).
Just because someone lives in a country does not mean they are interested in porn for only their race, region, or nationality. A porn dog is a porn dog, no matter what race, religion, or location.

Enjoy!

Re:Here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole subcontinent is littered with statues of stylized large-breasted women and phallic lingam. It seems a little odd to ban online porn, when sexuality lies at the heart of Hinduism (as it does for all the Indo-European religions).

There again. Lingam is NOT a Phallic Symbol, it was a mis-understanding by western scholars, and unfortunately it found universal western acceptance for the same. what made it worse is the likeness of the word "linga" which means gender. Its unfortunate that western psychoanalysts and scholars chose to force or rather foist their views, and that remains ingrained in most western people.

  Indians DO NOT worship it as a phallic symbol.

please refer these documents for further information:

an excerpt from the wiki:

According to Swami Sivananda,[15]

        The popular belief is that the Siva Lingam represents the phallus or the virile organ, the emblem of the generative power or principle in nature. This is not only a serious mistake, but also a grave blunder. In the post-Vedic period, the Linga became symbolical of the generative power of the Lord Siva. Linga is the differentiating mark. It is certainly not the sex-mark. You will find in the Linga Purana: Pradhanam prakritir yadahur-lingamuttamam; Gandhavarnarasairhinam sabda-sparsadi-varjitam—The foremost Linga which is primary and is devoid of smell, colour, taste, hearing, touch, etc., is spoken of as Prakriti (Nature).

Christopher Isherwood addresses the misinterpretation of the linga as a sex symbol as follows[3] —

        It has been claimed by some foreign scholars that the linga and its surrounding basin are sexual symbols, representing the male and the female organs respectively. Well — anything can be regarded as a symbol of anything; that much is obvious. There are people who have chosen to see sexual symbolism in the spire and the font of a Christian church. But Christians do not recognize this symbolism; and even the most hostile critics of Christianity cannot pretend that it is a sex-cult. The same is true of the cult of Shiva.

        It does not even seem probable that the linga was sexual in its origin. For we find, in the history both of Hinduism and Buddhism, that poor devotees were accustomed to dedicate to God a model of a temple or tope (a dome-shaped monument) in imitation of wealthy devotees who dedicated full-sized buildings. So the linga may well have begun as a monument in miniature.One of the greatest causes of misunderstanding of Hinduism by foreign scholars is perhaps a subconsciously respected tradition that God must be one sex only, or at least only one sex at a time.

I agree with the rest of your comment that the "rulers" the political class have become prudes and chose to ignore it, that coming from the land of kamasutra. how ironic! If you look at the google zeitgeist / trends, "sex" is a rather popular search term!

Re:Here it comes...

[herojig]

And besides that, it will put a heck of a lot of cyber cafes outta business! Feel sorry for the young Indian male...they might have to do something else...like work. Herojig in Nepal

Re:Here it comes...

[Syberz]

Isn't it a bit odd that the country that invented the Kama Sutra wants to ban pr0n?

That'd be like the US banning fried food.

Re:Here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite a lot of it is poorly lit and poorly shot, and many of the girls aren't very enthusiastic (which I guess may be a feature for some people).

Re:Here it comes...

[Anonymous Coward]

My sentiments exactly. There is over 1.1 billion of them, they revere the Kama Sutra, and "Mahalingham" (Great Dick) is considered a perfectly respectable name there... I'm pretty sure sex is NOT too sensitive a subject for India! If anything, it's the USians with their Puritanical roots that have a problem with sexuality. That being said, there are some images on the 'net (e.g. goatse and tubgirl) that I would be happier never having seen.

Re:Here it comes...

[Fluffeh]

Somewhere on efuct (or whatever the spelling of the site is). Funny as hell.

Re:Here it comes...

[vtstarin]

that's a good move

Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[BhaKi]

In the meantime, please read the summary again. It says Google continues to return accurate results. Check whether this fits consistently into your opinion about supposed censorship in India.

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[maxume]

No no, the summary contains paranoid Microsoft bashing, not India bashing. Not to mention the hilarious part about filtering being infeasible (I guess it would sort of suck for Indians if search engines started returning only white-listed results, but it isn't exactly hard to think of a way to filter output that you control (but the end result might suck for the searcher).

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Not nearly as paranoid as it could be. Tighten your tinfoil hats and consider the following insane hypothesis:

Microsoft, in their limitless greed and avarice, has an insatiable desire for cheap H1B and outsourced programming labour. India is a major source of this labour; but has rising incomes and standards of living, which threaten to make that labour more expensive. Pornography reduces birth rates by providing the sexually frustrated an alternative to procreation. If Microsoft(and its subservient minion Yahoo) can cut off India's porn supply, they can insure a bumper crop of future programmers. Supply and demand being what they are, the more programmers born, the less Microsoft has to pay, per programmer!

See? It's all very simple when you recognize the sinister conspiracy at work...

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[dhavleak]

There shouldn't be any bashing at all in this article.

.
India is a democratic country -- their laws are by definition reflective of their social values. If they want porn cencored, they are within their rights to want it. I don't agree with it -- but it's their call. If at some point in the future there is a change in social attitudes towards porn in India, they can vote for a government that will change their laws accordingly.

.
If you want to bash anyone, bash Google for not respecting local laws -- but even that would be stretching it a bit.

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[digitalunity]

I don't bash google, or yahoo on this regard. My opinion is that India has a right to enact laws that coincide with the moral status quo of that country. I would recommend all companies to comply with the laws of the countries they have physical locations at, but I don't know if Google actually has a physical presence in India. If they don't, I can't see why they would care what India's laws are.

If Yahoo! wants to comply with India's laws, then good for them. But they need to be honest with the Indian users of their service and make it publicly known that their results are filtered due to the laws of that country. If enough Indians get fed up, then they can make a go of trying to change the laws.

Censorship, when done in the dark is evil. Censorship done in the light of day is slightly less evil.

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[Sir_Lewk]

Furthermore, by eliminating pornography in India, Microsoft will have assured that everyone will want to come to America to work^Wget porn. Brillant!

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[dhavleak]

I don't know if Google actually has a physical presence in India

They do.. hence the bit about respecting local laws.

But they need to be honest with the Indian users of their service and make it publicly known that their results are filtered due to the laws of that country .... Censorship, when done in the dark is evil. Censorship done in the light of day is slightly less evil.

Completely agreed, and a great idea at that.

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[bnenning]

It's entirely reasonable to criticize governments when they enact stupid policies, whether they're democratically elected or not. As I recall one or two foreign entities on occasion said less than complimentary things about the Bush administration; were they wrong to do so?

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[Ethanol-fueled]

You're closer to the truth than you realize. The same thing is going on in America as well - the limiting of abortion coverage in our healthcare bill, our pop-culture's fairly recent obsession with babies and breeding, antagonism towards Planned Parenthood.

Corporations want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to have a huge foreign pool of cheap labor, and they want to have a huge domestic pool of proletariat consumers and disposable warriors.

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[elashish14]

India is a democratic country -- their laws are by definition reflective of their social values.

This is a fallacious correlation. Just because laws have been arrived at through a democratic process does not necessarily mean that they represent social values. There are much more important driving factors for legislation in a democracy than these social values. There are many ways (for example, lobbyists/bribery) that groups can influence democratic legislation, even in directions contrary to social values. The only possible government in which your ideals of democracy would be upheld would be one that's extremely limited socially so that no one's social values could be trampled upon.

If they want porn cencored, they are within their rights to want it.

I disagree with this. This is a case where your social values are at odds with personal liberties and just because such regulations would be arrived at through a democratic process doesn't mean that it's okay to take these liberties away. You could make the same case with racial segregation, where only a few really wanted to integrate, but the views of the majority democratically determined that segregation was legal and allowable. Another example could be gay marriage, where a majority is often against it, but since it is (arguably) within a gay couple's right to marry, these social values should not influence the democratic process to take their rights away.

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[phantomfive]

This is a case where your social values are at odds with personal liberties and just because such regulations would be arrived at through a democratic process doesn't mean that it's okay to take these liberties away.

The thing here is, you are making a value judgement. You're also making a value judgement when you say that racial segregation is bad. I happen to agree with that judgement, but it is still a judgement. Who is there to say that your values are correct and some other person's values are incorrect? Unless we have absolute truth, we cannot know these things.

You are confused about the point of democracy: it doesn't exist to protect what you consider to be liberties, it actually exists to avoid some of the problems we have with kings (violent regime changes), and to have government that roughly represents the will of the majority. It is hard living in a single place with a bunch of people: if you think about it, even living in a family is hard, and how many more people are there in a country? Democracy solves the problem better than anything else so far, but still if the majority decides to take away your personal liberties, they can because there are more of them than you. You may think it is 'wrong,' but once again that is a value judgement.

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[DNS-and-BIND]

There are plenty of examples of democracies getting it wrong. Just look at the California gay marriage bill that passed last year, or the various EU plans that were shot down by voters. Thank goodness there are ways around those.

Voting is pure gambling, there is no guarantee of a positive outcome. Any sort of referendum is just a roll of the dice and you hope the voters will get it right, but frequently they get it wrong. Simply saying "the voters have spoken" is childish and not at all fashionable among the intelligentsia these days. You need a solid core of well-educated people to ensure that society makes the correct decisions, otherwise you'll end up with a racist hate-state.

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[Anonymous Coward]

Democracy solves the problem better than anything else so far,...

That depends on what you mean by "democracy". Pure democracy, where everything is decided by everyone voting, isn't feasible in a country the size of the USA (or India). But, more fundamentally, something like the USA's (and even India's) government consists of much more than letting people vote.

For one thing, there's a whole system of checks and balances (e.g. separation of powers) and various mechanisms to promote transparency. And then there's the whole idea of "rule of law" - that you have a process rather than an individual (king) make decisions (e.g. whether someone is guilty of a crime and should be punished). But there's also basic stuff - like the concept of freedom - the idea that a person should be the one making the decisions that affect them (for example, a person should be free to say what they want even if the majority disagrees).

So, unless you define "democracy" to be a whole hodgepodge of different mechanisms to try to make a government work well for its constituents (rather than just individual voting), democracy is definitely not better than anything so far (the hodgepodge is better - though less logically pure).

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm Indian so I can say this - Indians want porn, all classes and all backgrounds. Actually, it's only some of the uppermost class (class = money & background) that don't want or like it and it's social-suicide to 'rally' for porn or anti-censorship.

Notice how many 'Indian girl' porn vids have started coming up over the past 2-3 yrs? Yeah. And the summary already pointed out that Indian ppl (pun intended) search for sex more than any other country.

It's all very two-faced and about what you show rather than what you are. Pomp and Show are very big in India, so it's self-righteous to say you're against porn. Porn is not the only issue and India is not the only country.

On another note - seems Indian police don't know the difference between 'illegal to publish' and 'illegal to have'. If they raid you for say, pirated software, and find porn as well, that's gonna make it worse for you.

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[Anonymous Coward]

> Any sort of referendum is just a roll of the dice and you hope the voters will get it right

What do you mean 'get it right'? You are assuming there is an objective standard of what's right and what's wrong. There isn't. If Indians want to ban pornography, then this ban is 'right' by *definition*. In any democracy, if a law takes a stand on a social question, then the stand it takes is the 'right' one simply because the majority believes it is the right one.

This argument does not work for new or controversial issues (where the people have not really made up their minds, but the laws have not been left in an analogously ambiguous state for obvious reasons). But I think you'll find that the ban on pornography (in India) is neither new nor controversial.

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[selven]

So 51% of the population has the right to deny 49% the right to engage in perfectly legitimate activities? I wouldn't approve of this even if 90% of the population voted for it.

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[selven]

The idea that what the people want matters is a value judgement. The idea that violent regime changes are bad is a value judgement.

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[Anonymous Coward]

In any democracy, if a law takes a stand on a social question, then the stand it takes is the 'right' one simply because the majority believes it is the right one.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, a thousand times wrong. Let me guess, you watch Fox News and Limbaugh, right?

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[Zero__Kelvin]

"See? It's all very simple when you recognize the sinister conspiracy at work..."

That is a ridiculous theory. It is far too complicated. You got the first part right: "Microsoft, in their limitless greed and avarice, has an insatiable desire for cheap H1B and outsourced programming labour." From there you go horribly astray. My good friend Occam tells me that it is something more like this:

Microsoft Recruiter: We won't pay you much, but we don't block porn.
H1B Candidate: Where would I be finding the line to sign sir?

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[Zero__Kelvin]

"India is a democratic country -- their laws are by definition reflective of their social values."

Right. Because laws always reflect the social values of society as a whole in a democratic society. That is why marijuana is now perfectly legal in the United States, and we stopped having one of the largest rates of incarceration in the "free" world when we stopped locking up people for committing victimless "crimes" long ago.

Thank Shiva and Shakti that democracies are flawless, and the all might dollar never sways a single vote!

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[Josh04]

wget porn?!

--2009-12-30 12:40:10-- http://porn/
Resolving porn... failed: Name or service not known.
wget: unable to resolve host address `porn'


Damn you Microsooooft!

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[physburn]

Rubbish, weepy love story movies limit birthrate, not porn. Its been many a year since men had much choice in weather to have children. Not tonight darling, i'm sticking to porn until you go back on the pill.

What i'm paranoid about is american multinational ignore the wishes of worldwide consumers and helping enforce local censorship policies at the expense of freedom. This has already happenned with china, where of course is political content rather than sexual content which is suppressed.

---

Censorship Feed @ Feed Distiller

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[Anonymous Coward]

Just hand them some bakshish after taking a dozen raps with the bamboo stick in the backroom and you're free to go.

I really petty the indian people, once a sexually oriented culture now sexually oppressed and experiencing a steep rise in homosexuality, we all know why, overpopulation. But is it helping or making it worse?

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when does porn make you pregnant?

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[Anonymous Coward]

Democracy without a rule of law imposed by acknowledgment of certain basic principles is not a democracy I want or that I would encourage anywhere else. Pure democracy would allow, for example, slavery if the majority of people decided they wanted to allow it. It would allow all sorts of awful things, hence the term "the tyranny of the majority". That is why there are usually legal limits on a democracy: because there are some rights that most people accept are above democratic ideals and should always remain with the individual.

Now, perhaps it's ridiculous to suggest pornography is one of those rights, but freedom of expression certainly is one of them, and pornography involving consenting adults is often regarded as an example. The question to ask is: in a free country, should consenting adults be prevented from doing what they want in this regard? The implication of this law is that they can't, which means people in India have lost some small bit of freedom that they used to have.

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[kirill.s]

You mean you don't have a host on you local network dedicated entirely to porn and thus named porn? You might want to reconsider your /. membership.

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[dhavleak]

Saying it a thousand times doesn't make it wrong.

I hate Limbaugh and Fox News as much as you do -- but democracy is essentially 'majority wins'.. nobody's been able to come up with a better system yet. And it isn't for lack of trying.

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[KnownIssues]

I realize your argument is meant as a joke, but I do have to wonder if you have part of it: Microsoft's desire to stay on the good side of India's government and populace.

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

C'mon, man, everybody knows that servers are supposed to have star trek references for hostnames. http://sevenofnine/ is where the good stuff is...

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[StillNeedMoreCoffee]

There is an interesting issue here. "it's their call" may be true. There may be a line though that you can speak out against or a precedence that may be dangerous to democracy in India. Here we are talking about prior constraint which is a very dangerous precedent. Now for images and ideas surrounding human procreation. Which I contend is necessary for our continued existance.

A democratic system that controls information is probably not a real democratic system. Democratic systems require a free flow and competition of ideas, when you start to restrict one idea or one point of view you divert the core ideals.

It is interesting to note that there is so much internet traffic related to sex from India. That might suggest that this legistlation is not the will of the people really. Just like in the US which has a multi-billion dollar Adult Entertainment industry, if the matter were brought up for a vote (secret ballot of course) I would imagine that much of the prudery would be exposed for what it really is, Hypocracy.

But the issue here is control of information by those who think they know whats best for us. I say, No! They don't know and they should stay out of it.

That is if you want to continue to have real democracies in the world. Can you feel the tightning of the screws already.

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[phantomfive]

Indeed. And if some day, a large enough majority of Americans decide that it will be better to have a king, then we will have a king, and he will be free to ignore the will of the people (although even then within limits: if he makes enough people mad, that's where the violent regime change comes in).

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[Anonymous Coward]

Pornography reduces birth rates by providing the sexually frustrated an alternative to procreation. Sorry, but I'd have to call "bullshit" on that one. Porn makes those that have access to pussy hornier, and thus more likely to utilize that access. For those that don't have access to pussy, the birth rate is completely unaffected.

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[selven]

I'm confused as to what you actually want. Is it rule of power? You need to have some kind of core values to go toward because otherwise there's no point to anything.

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[phantomfive]

You are right, values generally boil down to what people want. And democratic societies are generally responsive to what people want.

If you are asking me what I personally want, it's a government that does not get in my way too much, because I can personally take care of myself. If the rest of the country decides it wants some massive, expensive, useless healthcare plan (as an aside, and as an observer, we are in an interesting situation here because the democratic party is trying to push a project that the majority of the country is actually opposed to. It will be interesting to see how it turns out), and as a result, bankrupts the country, and somehow we end up returning to subsistence farming; that will be unfortunate because I really like my ipod and the internet, but I will handle it and still find happiness.

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[selven]

I agree that getting people what they want is what we're trying to maximize, and democracy does that fairly well, but there are problems if the system is not reined in. The problem is that some people's wants are stronger than others. For example, consider a country with 10 people and a vote between two plans. Plan A gives everyone 10 apples. Plan B gives 6 people 11 apples and 4 people 1 apple. A pure democracy would pick B even though A is superior. This is how I see human rights issues. Their joy from seeing me imprisoned for saying bad stuff is much less than my suffering from being in that prison, so they shouldn't have the right to throw me in prison. This also has problems however - in real life these issues aren't as simple as 1 apple vs 9 apples, and someone has to decide how valuable each right is. I don't think there is a perfect solution.

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[psithurism]

It's entirely reasonable to criticize governments when they enact stupid policies, whether they're democratically elected or not. As I recall one or two foreign entities on occasion said less than complimentary things about the Bush administration; were they wrong to do so?

As I recall a large portion of the United States said less than complimentary things about the Bush administration.

GP:

their laws are by definition reflective of their social values

Where do you live GP? I've lived in a democratice country my entire life, I know it's a rare experience, but it leads me to completely disagree with you. If I don't want to do something, I don't do it. If I don't want my neighbor doing something I expect a debate on whether that is reasonable wherever this occurs.

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[Thinboy00]

His (her?) contention was that porn makes you not get pregnant by replacing actual sex.

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[phantomfive]

Yeah, you are right. What you are describing is the tyranny of the majority, and the constitution has laws built in to try to limit them, including the concept of rights, but a large enough majority can change these limitations (and have in the past, see slavery). It isn't a good idea to make these completely unchangeable, because if the majority gets large enough, they will be tempted to change things through violence if there is no other way.

Ultimately all society depends on some level of trust and cooperation. If that breaks down, then so will society.

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[jc42]

... but democracy is essentially 'majority wins'.. nobody's been able to come up with a better system yet. And it isn't for lack of trying.

Actually, those revolutionaries that the Americans call their Founding Fathers did understand the problems with this, and came up with a marginally better system. They set up some basic laws in the Constitution, and changing those laws takes a lot more than a simple majority vote. The courts can and do toss out laws that conflict with the Constitution.

This isn't perfect, of course, since a sufficiently successful demagogue can get a 2/3 majority and stomp all over the minority. And the courts are notorious for selective enforcement of all the laws, including parts of the Constitution. Thus, no court has yet ruled on warrantless wiretapping or "extraordinary rendition" (i.e., indefinite detention without trial and torture), despite the obvious Constitutional problems. But the fact remains that the system is a lot more stable than a straightforward majority-rule system would be.

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[Anonymous Coward]

Google is not Indian. Stop with your stupid, ridiculous search for country bashing in and of itself and look for fucking reasons.
The INDIAN GOVERNMENT passed laws preventing the dissemination of pornography, of course if fucking fits into censorship in India you fucking moron. As an Indian yourself you should know that violence is more acceptable than romance here as in many other countries.
Goddamn, some movies get a G rating despite decapitations (some ghost movie) and the fucking Matrix Revolutions got an R for one sexual scene at the beginning. You're unbelievably deluded.

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[dhavleak]

But when you think about it 2/3rd majority is still a majority -- just not a simple majority. Sure, there's all kinds of complexity tacked on, but when you distill it, you get "majority wins".

Re:Wait a minute before the India-bashing begins

[jc42]

Well, sure, and that's why I mentioned the demagogue who gets a 2/3 majority.

Also, if the Constitution required a 99% majority to change laws, that would still be "merely" a majority. But it would function as a consensus-based system, not as a democratic system.

Usually when people use "majority" with qualifiers, it means anything greater than 50%, since that's the basic meaning of the word.

Similarly, "democratic" really just means that voting of some sort happens for major decisions, but you need modifiers to distinguish different kinds of "democratic" systems. Otherwise, people will often assume that you mean whatever kind of voting system their country uses. (And nowadays, the countries with "Democratic" in their names are usually the most tyrannical, even if they do have elections. ;-)

Heh

[NotQuiteReal]

Given that the 'sex' search term is searched more in India than in any other country... Based on population, I can only assume that India, at number 2 aspires to overtake China.

Clearly, if you have to google "sex", you already know what it is.

Re:Heh

[mattventura]

Won't this just cause Bing and Yahoo to lose marketshare in India? I haven't RTFA'd very carefully, so correct me if I'm completely off the mark.

Re:Heh

[Ethanol-fueled]

Heh. I doubt it's entirely true that Indians search for sex more than everybody else, just that others are just more specific.

Hypothetical example: for every Indian who looks up "sex", there are four Americans who each look up "fisting", "creampies", "MILFs", and "jailbait" :)

Re:Heh

[PachmanP]

Hypothetical example: for every Indian who looks up "sex", there are four Americans who each look up "fisting", "creampies", "MILFs", and "jailbait" :)

What about the guy who's searching for "MILFs fisting jailbait creampies"? or "MILF"+"fisting"+"jailbait"+"creampies"? Or "jailbait fisting MILFs"? Or any of the previous with +"midget"?

I mean if you just search for "sex" you get stuff like wikipedia and psychology today...

Re:Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up.

Re:Heh

[nacturation]

Clearly, if you have to google "sex", you already know what it is.

Or, more succinctly, sex != porn.

Re:Heh

[mrsteveman1]

Clearly, if you have to google "sex", you already know what it is.

"Sex" you say? Let's just give that a try.....open Google and.....OH MY GOD WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO ANOTHER PERSON???

Re:Heh

[mister_playboy]

Interesting you chose the number 4, since their are almost exactly 4 times as many people living in India compared to America.

There are way more people both searching for sex on the internet and having sex IRL in India than in America, based on nothing more than population numbers.

Re:Heh

[andy1307]

you already know what it is.

Clearly if you are on /., you don't know what it is.

Re:Heh

[Kogase]

based on nothing more than population numbers.

You probably shouldn't base it on nothing more than population numbers. How about birth control usage?

Re:Heh

[kirill.s]

Based on population, I can only assume that India, at number 2 aspires to overtake China

India is only number 2, because China sensors everything already, so there's no statistic for the 'sex' keyword there.

Back in Soviet Russia they used to say "There's no sex in the USSR", now the Chinese have it the same way.

Re:Heh

[Bigbutt]

I think the reverse would be true. Sex and porn would be well known subjects. As we all know (sorry), Knowledge != Experience.

[John]

Re:Heh

[misexistentialist]

No results found for "jailbait fisting MILFs". The internet has failed me.

Re:Heh

[cloudmaster]

Awesome. The Illinois State Police's Sex Offender Registry is the *second* hit on the list (the first is "pornhub", which I assume is actually a porn site). The rest aren't porn sites (at least, not in the "creampie milf jailbait fisting" sense from comments earlier in the thread). And yes, I have safe search turned off - I'll censor my own web, thanks.

Gone downhill...

[headkase]

Remember when the Internet was all porn (1994)? Yeah, it's really gone downhill since then...

Re:Gone downhill...

[nickyj]

Yeah, at least I keep using my trusty search engine for all my porno searching: pornoogle.com

Well

[robvangelder]

Didn't the Kama Sutra come out of India?

Re:Well

[royallthefourth]

Didn't the Kama Sutra come out of India?

Have you ever tried reading it? It's about as exciting as the Bible (or any other ancient text), though at least it's more relevant.

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

It is difficult to understand India, unless you have visited and lived for some time. There is a great level of hypocrisy in India about everything including sex.

Sex is not new to India, and also it is not kept as hidden as we think. Kama Sutra is one example, Khajuraho temples in India showing different positions of intercourse is another example...and according to many experts, Shivalinga worshipped almost everywhere in India is a symbol of sex. Of course, the worshipping represents respectful recognition of its importance and its discussion or public demonstration is not highly appreciated.

A kiss by Aishwarya Rai in film could invite huge protest. Where as many other actors and actresses have kissed on screen and many actresses have exposed their breasts.

In spite of being touchy about this issue, people like Rathod, who was a cop, can get away molesting a minor girl and evade law for 19 years and get away with very simple punishment. It is difficult for a normal Indian to understand that sexually frustrated cops like Rathod and loopholes in their system is more dangerous than a search engine submitting web pages what they are looking for.

I have tough time to understand a normal Indian but probably it seems, they live in some kind of imaginary world and do not want to believe in practicality.

Re:Well

[dsoltesz]

Dude, you're doing it wrong: it's a hands-on tutorial, not a reference manual... you're supposed to work through the exercises, not just read them.

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, you're doing it wrong: it's a hands-on tutorial, not a reference manual... you're supposed to work through the exercises, not just read them.

Well, I've just followed your advice, and I must say, it's really quite difficult to type when you are unable to untie yourself after having tried position #18.

Morevover, as a human pretzel I am now experiencing severe problems getting an appointment with the orthopedic department - partly because it is the holiday season so there is a staffing problem, but also partly because my ears and the phone in my hand appear to currently form a topological counter-example to the Poincaré conjecture.

This is the last time I'm taking advice from a slashdot post.

Re:Well

[TheRaven64]

In the original, you're correct (and it's just one of a series that cover various aspects of leading a spiritual life). The most popular versions for the last few hundred years, however, have been very carefully and artistically illustrated. These are the ones that most people talk about. You'll also find larger copies of the illustrations in various temples and palaces.

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you may be joking, but if you are serious here is what you should have done: Never try any posture which is uncomfortable. To quote Richard Burton(from Anangaranga): "The reader will bear in mind that the exceeding pliability of the Hindu's limbs enables him to assume attitudes absolutely impossible to the European, and his chief object in congress is to avoid tension of the muscles, which would shorten the period of enjoyment".

This is the principle for practicing postures in Yoga too. If you are trying too hard, you are going down soon. Good luck with your orthopedic appointment. What's more, you will find the same concept in Zen stories too.

Re:Well

[t0p]

It is difficult to understand India, unless you have visited and lived for some time. There is a great level of hypocrisy in India about everything including sex.

Same as everywhere else. Hypocrisy is part of the human condition.

Re:Well

[dkleinsc]

Sex is not new to India

You don't say. I was wondering how all those people ended up getting born there. Next thing you're going to point out that sex isn't new to Iran either.

Re:Well

[batquux]

I beg to differ. http://www.xkcd.com/414/

maybe makes bussiness sense

[fermion]

If I were a search engine desperately trying to gain market share in an environment dominated by a competitor, I might look for the largest growing open market, in this case India. I might accommodate some vagaries in hopes that a positive official recommendation might help my market share. If no school allows access to google, not even colleges, if no major corporate office allows access to google, if no government office allows access to google, then one can imagine that in a generation Google will be gone as a viable entity in India. And then there is the issue of Google having offices in India(I think they do), which means that Google will not be in compliance with the law.

In this case, I don't see this as a 'Bing and Yahoo are bad' issue. If Google does not comply, that is business decision, just like Bing and Yahoo.

Re:maybe makes bussiness sense

[mattventura]

Didn't Google do the same thing with China? Censor themselves or be completely blocked? Possibly, if Google was blocked, it would piss enough people off to lower the people's opinion of the government and possibly effect change. I don't know though, I don't live in India, so I don't know if a few million people being pissed about something like this would effect any changes from the government.

Re:maybe makes bussiness sense

[ZosX]

They did. Search for Tienanmen Square on images.google.cn. Then search on any other flavor of google. Quite the difference!

They do give the wikipedia pages, but it seems to be picking up on my locale, but I do distinctly remember searching google on a tor exit node from china and being surprised at how censored the great wall really is.

Re:maybe makes bussiness sense

[dhavleak]

Not really. People will search for porn whether you server up the right results or not. The search engine that serves up the best porn results will win the search wars (in India, in the world, anywhere). It's bad for business (for Bing's business) as long as competitors (Google) don't do the same. It is respectful of local laws however. India is a democratic country -- if social attitudes are such that they choose to censor themselves, they are within their rights to do that. They can change the relevant laws in the future if social attitudes change. Until then, as pointless as it is to try to prevent people from viewing porn, search engines should do their best to comply.

Re:maybe makes bussiness sense

[dhavleak]

Try over a billion people :) -- almost three billion if you combine India and China.

I don't have first-hand knowledge, but it seems to me that in China it doesn't matter if people get pissed. Events damaging to the govt. seem to literally disappear from their history, like Tiananmen sq., events in Tibet, and much more. I guess it's a chicken-and-egg thing when it comes to censorship -- you can't get mad about stuff you don't know about. Perhaps people in China just think the 'net has a lot less porn than we know it to have? I mean, you'd just have to censor articles about censoring porn, and after a while the event will disappear from social consciousness.

In India, I guess the redeeming factor is that they are a democracy. Sure there must be tons of people that are pissed about this, but at least they know it's happening to them. At least they can talk about being pissed. The discussion can continue until such time that social attitudes change, and if/when that happens, they can change the law.

So I guess the difference is that in China, the people aren't prudes but the govt. is. In India, the govt will do whatever, but the people are prudes. Or something like that.. :P

Re:maybe makes bussiness sense

[Interoperable]

Exactly; businesses make business decisions. This may be a poor business decision (although I agree with you that it also may be a very shrewd one) but nobody should be heaping blame on Bing and Yahoo for censorship. That blame should be directed squarely at the Indian government. Bing and Yahoo (and yes, Google too) are concerned only with revenue streams. You will disappointed if you feel otherwise.

Governments should be accountable for upholding human rights, like free speech, by creating sensible, correct laws. Corporations should be accountable for protecting profits while still acting within the laws. If the two goals become confused there will be conflicts of interest which will undermine human rights. Free speech is the government's responsibility, not that of Bing or Yahoo or Google. People need to be disappointed in the right people (elected officials) in order for change to occur.

P.S. Props for the sig. Le Petit Prince is excellent.

Re:maybe makes bussiness sense

[Anonymous Coward]

searching google on a tor exit node from china

You've probably helped put that guy in the government's watchlist.

Re:maybe makes bussiness sense

[DNS-and-BIND]

Possibly, if Google was blocked, it would piss enough people off to lower the people's opinion of the government and possibly effect change.

OK, let me get this straight, just so I understand. You're saying that if the Chinese government blocked Google, the Chinese people would be enraged? Sufficiently enraged to rise up and overthrow the government? Are you deranged, man? Or are you just totally unaware there's a world outside of Google, Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter? Honestly, where did this attitude come from?

PS: Chinese people use baidu.com anyway!
PPS: the word you're looking for is "affect".

Re:maybe makes bussiness sense

[giorgiofr]

Possibly, if Google was blocked, it would piss enough people off to lower the people's opinion of the government and possibly effect change.

Actually what happens is that half of the government points to t3h ebil corporashuns and screams "See? They're trying to strong-arm us! They threaten us! Down with corporashuns! And multinationals while we're at it." and half of the population supports them when they enact idiotic laws (statalization, regulation, etc)

Re:maybe makes bussiness sense

[t0p]

PPS: the word you're looking for is "affect".

Actually, no. One of the meanings of "effect" is as a transitive verb: to bring about; to produce as a result; to cause. Eg. to effect a compromise. Or indeed, to effect change. See http://www.yourdictionary.com/effect This is different to "to affect change", which means "to have an effect on change".

So are you redirected to wholesome Bollywood?

[syousef]

We all know that there is no sex in Bollywood. It is a chaste and pure place where the pixies and fairies cavort in peace, love and mung beans.

Re:So are you redirected to wholesome Bollywood?

[Anonymous Coward]

And lots of swinging boobies!

Why do you think we watch bollywood movies anyway?

Re:So are you redirected to wholesome Bollywood?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever wondered what they do with those mung beans?

Re:So are you redirected to wholesome Bollywood?

[digTro]

There really is no sex in Bollywood. Everything upto the point of getting nude and having sex is allowed, but the line is drawn at sex. Now a days the situation is better. At least they show people kissing each other, but a decade earlier, movies used "rich" symbolisms like bees hovering over a flower, two flowers jostling each other in the wind and shots of lightning to indicate that actors are engaged in passion and sex.

Wait a minute

[francisstp]

It can always plausibly deny control of its results and claim that filtering porn is infeasible.

Well it's obviously feasible if they're actually doing it.

Re:Wait a minute

[mattventura]

You're implying that they somehow block every single search term related to porn. Guess what? Not only are there tons of slang terms for various things they haven't heard of, but even whole genres of porn that they can't block because they've never heard of. Sure, they can block most mainstream porn, but a lot of genre-specific porn would also apply to mainstream.

Re:Wait a minute

[francisstp]

What? TFS is about Yahoo actually censoring adult search results. The question of how successful they are is not especially relevant. They're able to filter at least some results; anyone who has had to deal with the safe search filters at Yahoo of Google can agree that they do work a great majority of the time. So like I said, they can't "claim that filtering porn is infeasible".

Re:Wait a minute

[mrsteveman1]

You're implying that they somehow block every single search term related to porn. Guess what? Not only are there tons of slang terms for various things they haven't heard of, but even whole genres of porn that they can't block because they've never heard of. Sure, they can block most mainstream porn, but a lot of genre-specific porn would also apply to mainstream.

2 snakes 1 charmer?

Re:Wait a minute

[mattventura]

Safe search is far form effective. It will filter out common search terms, yes, but it's not hard to find one it doesn't filter. Ironically, the auto-completer will show what is filtered, so you don't even have to check, so it's easier to find porn. For example, start typing something obvious like "creampie" into Google with safesearch on full, and it won't try to autocomplete it for you. Then, type "rule 34" into Google and look at all the suggestions it has for you. Searching for "rule 34" itself yields basically no pornographic results, no matter what the safesearch state is. However, pick something more specific from the list of choices the auto-completer has so nicely given you, and you get porn, even with safesearch on. All it does is filter it from people that don't actually know how to get around that kind of thing.

Until google or someone figures out an algorithm to detect all boobs, genitals, etc in images, including cartoons and hand-drawn things, no automatic filtering will be truly effective.

Re:Wait a minute

[wisty]

Just wait till they try to ban slashfic ...

Re:Wait a minute

[couchslug]

Not to mention innocent food references like "1 guy 1 jar".

Says who?

[do_kev]

Since Yahoo! already has a low search market share in India, this will drive it even lower.

I suspect the executives at Yahoo! don't share your opinion. It's not like they did this because of their personal moral codes; this is probably a calculated risk, based upon the societies public values, intended to increase market share by appearing to be more family-oriented and appropriate. The goal is to spawn conversations such as: "Oh, you're using Google? Haven't you heard about the immoral content it tries to force upon users?"

I don't know if it will work, but it's not like it's downright stupid. Some people will consider this feature desirable. Others will consider the fact that people think they like this feature to be desirable. It's all a psychology game.

Re:Says who?

[bhagwad]

it tries to force upon users?"

Force on users?

citation needed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you define "accurate results" please.

Siding with the ISPs

[bguiz]

If I were in the Indian govt, I'd take the advice of the ISP, censoring the internet is an infeasible task, at least for the technologically savvy:

0) People are getting their pr0n via search engines
1) Censor yahoo, or any other search engine
2) People unable to get their pr0n via search engines, they turn to torrents or any other p2p
3) Censor p2p traffic
4) People unable to get their pr0n via p2p, they route their traffic through proxies or any other virtual tunnels
5) ...

Lather, rinse, repeat

A similar sequence of events is (about to) play out here in Australia, should the govt pass its internet censorship bill.

Re:Siding with the ISPs

[mjwx]

A similar sequence of events is (about to) play out here in Australia,

A press conference in a dystopian future.

Darth Conroy: With the failure of the National Broadband Filter to protect the children we've decided to block VPN.
Emporor BHP: No, you wont be doing that now will we.
Darth Rudd: yes, my master.

If nothing else, you can count on the government bending over to the corporations that the Australian economy depends on (the resources sector). After all a few offended puritans are noting compared to the power of the mining giants.

However I'm still betting on this thing never passing parliament. It's an election this year this year after all.

Re:Tired of this crap

[MightyMartian]

When is America going to stop selling out to India?? This is absolutely freakin ridiculous. As an American IT person I've completely had it with India and Indians dictating how to implement technology. F@#k'em!!!!

Well said. Now may I introduce you to Rajish. He will be sharing your office with you for the next 30 days on a training basis. Don't look so worried, I'm sure the unemployment line isn't too long. And remember, you do have your company shares to tide you over, or at least give you a few days supply of toilet paper, wherever it is you end up squatting.

Re:Tired of this crap

[mattventura]

Not to mention outsourcing support to India. Had a phone call from hell once. Person in India had *no way at all* of telling me if a particular office was opened or closed, and could not connect me to anyone within the company that would know. Off topic as this may be, the US does need to stop relying so heavily on other countries, and stop basing decisions based on other countries' actions.

The Geek As Psychic

[westlake]

no complaint was ever launched (and never will be), and glorious Google still continues to return accurate and unbiased results

Never say never.

Money, politics, law and religion make a volitile mix in any culture. You cannot predict the outcome.

Apple Censors Dalai Lama IPhone Apps in China [Dec 29]

Google's China Blues [Dec 21]

 

go west young man

[Anonymous Coward]

You thought there are a lot of Indians in this country now.

hold the phone

[Eil]

Wait, wait... there's porn on flickr?

Re:hold the phone

[jocabergs]

yeah that's what got my attention. People will always make porn, people will always buy porn, others will try to censor it, but for god sakes let me know where the good free stuff is. (High def preferably).

Re:hold the phone

[GrumblyStuff]

Yeah, there's some. It's more "artsy nakedness" than simply "porn" though there was that octopus on women gallery....

I think it was Flickr anyway.

(It was on BoingBoing.net and only Tubgirl and the like are the bounds of my curiosity. The Daily Cervix was pushing it though.)

Re:hold the phone

[GrumblyStuff]

Wait, it's called Beautiful Cervix, not Daily.

And here, the octopus thing so you don't need that on your google record: http://boingboing.net/2009/01/02/cephalerotica.html :P

Uh, no...

[Lord Kano]

It can always plausibly deny control of its results and claim that filtering porn is infeasible.

Well, clearly since Bing is doing it, yahoo can't claim that they can't. They've just shown that they can make at least a minimally successful attempt. Your "plausible deniability" isn't looking so plausible.

LK

Re:Tired of this crap

[0ld_d0g]

person I've completely had it with India and Indians dictating how to implement technology. F@#k'em!!!!

A large percentage of the Indian population are poor illiterate farmers/village-folk. A very tiny percentage of their population (my guess is single digits) is online and most Indians I know would never support such policies. Most likely this is just their internal politics (similar to the abortion and LGBT posturing we have here) to appeal to the conservative populace. Heck they tell me some morons even tried to ban Valentines day as it imposes liberal "western" values ! (It didn't work)

Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

First H1B hating and then sexual desperation all in one day! Slashdot (hearts) India.

Who is bhagwad?

[harlows_monkeys]

Is bhagwad someone famous, or someone with particular insight into the Indian ISP situation, or someone who has some other qualification that would make it worth having most of the submission be his blithering speculation on the subject?

It would be really nice of Slashdot were to hire some editors to actually edit the submissions.

Re:Who is bhagwad?

[Rogerborg]

Slashdot "editors" have an explicit policy on not doing any... editing. That's just how they roll. In other news, I have decided that despite being employed as a coder, all I'll be doing from now on it copying and pasting random hits from Google Code. Compiling and debugging it is my customers job. That's just how I roll.

Re:Who is bhagwad?

[t0p]

Is bhagwad someone famous, or someone with particular insight into the Indian ISP situation, or someone who has some other qualification that would make it worth having most of the submission be his blithering speculation on the subject?

It would be really nice of Slashdot were to hire some editors to actually edit the submissions.

So being famous is qualification to pontificate on search engine censorship? Celebrity culture is truly wonderful. Next, Paris Hilton on advances in fusion research...

Re:Who is bhagwad?

[harlows_monkeys]

You don't read very well, do you? Just because "or" is a small word doesn't mean you can just ignore it. I didn't put it in just to improve the feng shui of my sentence structure.

Not a good decision. Ignorant politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Humans are Humans any where, whether India or the US. Oppressing the inner feelings of a person isn't called culture. India adopted many major technologies and 70% Indians in the cities live in nuclear families, but still they talk about "Family values" and "One family". With the technological changes viewing porn is just a transitional state of a society where there would be some uproars for some time. At a later point of time, porn would become just another regular matter in life. When women started wearing jeans and short skirts in India, there was an uproar. When there was Miss World Competition held, there was an uproar... now everyone just feels casual about it. Parents should take care of their children to be on right track. There are adults who are deprived of Sex. What is the alternative for them? Are they recommending prostitution? Internet offers vicarious satisfaction for such men/women. I am not happy with such ignorance. God help Indian people.

Just like with TV networks...

[Phroggy]

isn't it the duty of Yahoo! to provide accurate results to its customers?

You make the mistake of assuming that the users are the customers, rather than the product being sold.

Re:Just like with TV networks...

[dangitman]

You make the mistake of assuming that the users are the customers, rather than the product being sold.

Oh no! How creepy and dystopian. It's like I'm in the Matrix, and I'm being used as a human battery! Thank you, Phroggy, for opening my eyes to that which I have been so ignorant of all my life! It's like you have amazing powers to see the real truth.

Re:Just like with TV networks...

[SharpFang]

Sorry, but this is a truth well established within web portal corporations.

Customer = advertiser
Product = ad impressions
Essential components of the Product are:
- ad itself (usually outsourced to advert/gfx agency)
- content within which the ad is displayed (whatever is used to attract the user)
- medium (platform to run it on, servers, network infrastructure to serve the ad and so on)
- users - audience to view the ads.

The customer is only interested in user receiving the message of the ad. This is what the whole game is about. The rest are just means to reach it: create a catchy ad, display it in a place frequented by target audience, create such a place and attract said audience. The larger the audience the better of course, and getting it may require loyalty, genuine quality, respect, ethics, balance between ads and content and so on, but all in all, the ultimate goal is to show ad to the user.

In the portal company I worked for, the registered user of the portal was acronymed to ZUO, which was acronym in my language: "registered user of [portal name], but was also a funny misspelling of EVIL. And the running joke was that our work would be much easier, faster, smoother and better without them, but the pesky customers demand we don't just embed ads in content of all kinds, they also want we display it to the users and so the users are a necessary evil.

Re:Just like with TV networks...

[dangitman]

Well yes, the purpose of the advertising company is to drive people to the advertiser's services. What I was making fun of was the over-the-top way it was presented as "you are the product!!111oneone11one!" It reminds me a bit of Soyent Green. The self-righteous tone it was delivered with did not help - as if this was something that we did not know, and had to be revealed to lesser beings by the superior intelligence of Phroggy.

It's true that the role of advertising is to get people to visit the advertiser's site and hopefully buy the products being sold. It's hardly as sinister Phroggy makes it out to be, though. The users aren't literally being packaged up and sold on store shelves. They are simply being directed to the advertiser's site.

Yahoo stopped porn searches over a year ago

[zaivala]

This is really not a story -- Yahoo has been censoring porn in India for well over a year. I have a Yahoo! India email account, and occasionally do searches on Yahoo! India... while most of my searches have been finding pictures of Hindu gods and goddesses, I have looked at human goddesses as well... and always have to go to another Yahoo or other Search engine, despite my having my preferences set to no filtering. In fact, for a long time, I could click the button to stop filtering -- but there was no button to save that preference, so it never 'took'.

The obvious reason

[Corbets]

Well, after reading this article, I can see why porn films might be a sensitive issue in India... ;-)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6161691.stm

Re:The obvious reason

[st0nes]

Well, after reading this article, I can see why porn films might be a sensitive issue in India... ;-) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6161691.stm

Especially if they have South African stars.

Google filters porn

[ggpauly]

I mean this in the poetic sense, with dual meaning.

a) I've been using Google and Ixquick lately. Ixquick gives a fair number of porn site results to my searches, while Google rarely does. The difference? I'm not searching for porn and Google is giving better targeted results. (OTOH sometimes Ixquick comes up with a somewhat deep-web reference that Google misses, and it has other benefits as well).

b) Google has optional "SafeSearch Filtering" which I think works quite well, although I generally leave it off. It is not "infeasible" to filter porn, contrary to the OP statement. If you can provide search results for something it is trivial to suppress those same results. In other words, it's Google's core business to be able to filter porn.

Porn is not neutral

[Anonymous Coward]

the unleashing of Porn on all of the Internet is taken for granted by many - but in a critical analysis, its not neutral and does have repercussions. There is nothing to say that the West in general has things right in any long term.. We may become unstable in some unforeseen ways, claiming rights all the way... As a corollary I don't think its to be taken for granted that India is making a mistake..

removing suggestions google india

[Anonymous Coward]

Just for laughs, type "removing" in google inda and , and compare the google typing suggestions.

It will never work

[bradbury]

If one has a cultural framework in which on values males over females (in spite of the fact that India, at least from my reading of PBS programs, has a high respect for females). If you check the CIA World Factbook, regarding the "People" ratios it becomes fairly obvious. Sex selection is occurring in India taking place either by implicit or explicit actions (the most explicit actions being the clandestine abortion of female fetuses). If one has a sex selection process going on (and one could argue the same thing is taking place in China) then there is obviously going to be a demand for online "sex" information, esp. if one has rations involving 10's of millions of males with respect to females. And if you happen to think that constraining search engine results (presumably what the governments or the puritanical U.S. search engine providers might think) is going to constrain access then you fail to understand what outside of the box thinking of millions of individuals can accomplish. You cannot correct the problem by constraining internet access, you can can only correct it by changing the culture (a slow and difficult process, but one which the "west" has been through) or by changing the fundamental nature of human beings (clamping down on the natural desires to mate, etc.) which probably requires genetic engineering beyond our current capabilities.

Thus complaining about this (at least from a "West"ern perspective) is pretty much of a no-op / noise). Complaining about this from an "East"ern perspective (India/China) (combined population 2+ billion people or 30+% of the world's population) simply gives the creative individuals information required to do what they do best (i.e. work around the "system"). I could within a few hours easily work up a Perl script which figures out which keywords are blocked and which are not and the best way around such systems. Until government officials learn that attempting to "censor" the thought paths of their populations is relatively pointless exercise in an internet world, then conversations like this one (at least in the "West"ern world are relatively pointless). The paths to change (where females and males are valued as equal) have to come from within the individual cultures.

Indians will find their way into sex

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm from India and I just change bing preferences and say that my country of residence is (insert your favorite English speaking 'developed nation' here) whenever I am interested in browsing pr0n.

For example, I tell bing I'm from Denmark. Bing shows me stuff. I'm happy.

Indians on the net will mostly know how to search for what they want within a day or two.

Mod abuse..

[0ld_d0g]

Troll? Seriously?

A call for a White Paper

[Zero__Kelvin]

"It's entirely reasonable to criticize governments when they enact stupid policies, whether they're democratically elected or not."

If only we had some kind of formal document that explicitly outlined these new and radical ideas in the United States. We could teach our children that all US citizens have a responsibility to understand the concepts held within it, and the flawless democratic system would allows us to make sure we elect officials who respect it, as well as the rights of all US citizens. Alas, the US supreme court assures me there is no such document. Maybe we can get someone to write a White Paper, but there isn't any talent here in the states that could do the job. Maybe we can entice an H1B candidate over from India to do it with the promise of unblocked porn!

Re:A call for a White Paper

[Thinboy00]

...the flawless democratic system would allows us to make sure we elect officials who respect it...

I hope you were going for +5, Funny; I can't tell what you mean by that otherwise.

Re:A call for a White Paper

[Zero__Kelvin]

You read the whole post and that is the only thing you picked out as being facetious? (hint: we have such a paper already; I was referring to the US Constitution)

We hold these truths to be self evident

[P0ltergeist333]

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." - The Declaration of Independence.

Upon that very clear value statement America's founding fathers overthrew Colonial rule and founded what is still in-arguably, despite recent lapses, THE model for Democracy. They did not assert political or religious authority, as clearly evidenced by the very carefully chosen words 'their Creator.' The words 'We hold these truths to be self evident' are a clear indication that there are principles that transcend even a law that is 'democratically' implemented. In other words, tyranny that is implemented Democratically is still tyranny.

Re:We hold these truths to be self evident

[Cabriel]

You missed the point. "We hold..." means the founding fathers made a value judgment. Just because they hold those truths to be "self-evident" neither means they are self-evident nor means they are right. If a government represents the people, anything it does democratically is right, even if you or some country's founders might disagree.

Re:We hold these truths to be self evident

[phantomfive]

The declaration of independence, while a great document, is not law. I do agree with that opinion, but it is worth noting that until the civil war, a large segment of society did not have these rights.

Furthermore, your argument is a logical fallacy; it says, "X argument is correct because these great people said it" which is of course wrong. It doesn't matter what certain people believed, it only matters what is right.

Re:We hold these truths to be self evident

[P0ltergeist333]

That argument was neither stated nor unstated in my post. You are either misunderstanding or misrepresenting my statement. I mention the Founding Fathers out of respect and to give credit where it is due. I believe you are engaging in inconsistency ad hominem by the argument that because the value statement was not followed to the letter immediately, (I am assuming you are referring to slavery) then the writers or the statement itself is flawed. I believe I was clear in asserting that that statement was a summary of America's values, which was strong enough to wage a war for, and to build a government upon. America did not lose these values when they won the war, and it is upon these values that the US Constitution and thus all of our laws are based. The true fallacy at hand is that all moral judgments are subjective and equal. This is a fallacy that seems to actually be propped up by those who profess to be engaging in, supporting, or teaching 'critical thinking'; but it begs the question.

Re:We hold these truths to be self evident

[phantomfive]

Interesting comment.

So, the way I usually look at these things is, "if you choose X system, Y will be the result." You can tell people all day long that if they choose communism it will remove a significant motivation to produce, and things will become inefficient, but for them, that might be an acceptable price to pay. In America, most of us want freedom of speech. I know I do. But, if some day, the majority decides freedom of speech is bad, then all you can say is "choosing to limit freedom of speech will result in some other consequences." If the majority is willing to say that they want those consequences, how can you say they are wrong? As long as they know what they are choosing, then they are making the choice with their eyes wide open.

Furthermore, if a strong majority really wants it, then it is dangerous for the constitution to prevent it, because then the minority may end up being killed, or the constitution destroyed, since there is no other way for them to get what they want.

Re:Tired of this crap

[thetsguy]

Not to mention outsourcing support to India. Had a phone call from hell once. Person in India had *no way at all* of telling me if a particular office was opened or closed, and could not connect me to anyone within the company that would know. Off topic as this may be, the US does need to stop relying so heavily on other countries, and stop basing decisions based on other countries' actions.

Aren't these policies about information sharing defined by someone sitting in the US? Any customer contact center is as effective and efficient as the information they are provided by the organization, this needs to come from the higher management. If you are receiving bad service, may be once, think of the role of management providing incorrect / incomplete information to folks talking to you. Yes! I have karma to burn :)

Kamasutra

[Dolphinzilla]

didn't India write the book on porn !

Re:India is a democratic country

[roguegramma]

Well it is not base-democratic like Switzerland.

You only get to vote once, so you have a choice between like effectively 4 or so parties.

Claiming that with that vote you supported all n>100 decisions and laws that the govenment makes (giving more than 2^n possibilities) is clearly nonsense.

Re:Tired of this crap

[Anonymous Coward]

It's true.. When I was there (Dec 08 - Sep 09), Valentines day was a battlefield in the northwest. Conservative groups are not down with the growing Western-influenced concepts of 'love'. (I don't think they're morons, just scared shitless about the degradation of their value system) I will say that loads more people were on facebook than I expected, in all the urban areas... and those urban areas can be very very large, but yeah, way more farmers/villagers than googlers.

Also, not super open about sex there. The Kama Sutra is a relic of a different time.

Re:Tired of this crap

[couchslug]

In other news, US vegetable pickers with delusions of grandeur complained about their replacement by Mexicans.

Google Video

[Stregano]

Hey, as long as you can still turn safesearch off and do a google video search, I am good. That's right, it is the best way to get porn for me.

WIth one of the highest HIV rates in the world....

[Tomsk70]

...what does India do? Become even more Hypocritical - yup, that's it, banning porn will solve the problem.

Yahoo

[Anonymous Coward]

There is something about Ballmer of Microsoft and Yahoo getting together that seems appropriate. Ballmer has no technical knowledge. Yahoo has shown it is behind in technology.

Yahoo: 1. A person regarded as crude or brutish. 2. A member of a race of brutes in Swift's Gulliver's Travels who have the form and all the vices of humans.

BING acronym: Bing Is Not Google.

Please define "porn"

[Anonymous Coward]

Can someone please define this "porn" thing which is being banned. Please provide examples and links to web sites where I may find this "porn" thing.

Huge in India

[b4upoo]

India has what are probably the largest red light districts in the entire world. One district in Calcutta has an estimated 500,000 working whores all the way from three years old up into their nineties.
                That being a given just what the heck is porn supposed to do in that nation? It would be far better to get the men to wear condoms as the prostitutes often don't even know what a condom is and AIDS is a huge problem in that nation.

Kamasutra != porn

[hallux.sinister]

No, I believe that's the book on having good and enjoyable (and not just a little bit athletic) sex. Seems odd a country with a VERY famous and old How-To manual for good sex would shy away from it like this. What is going on in India? Another /. story mentioned engineers as being a fairly conservative lot, and there is a lot of chatter on the tubes about engineers having to move abroad (to, for instance, India,) to get good jobs. I wonder if all these phenomena could be related.

Duty?

[afabbro]

isn't it the duty of Yahoo! to provide accurate results to its customers?

No. It's just a search engine, for pity's sake. It's not like they took an oath to serve up truth, justice, and Western decay.

Douglas Adams was first

[HTH NE1]

Sex: none

Well, in fact there is an awful lot of this, largely because of the total lack of money, trade, banks, art, rainfall, or anything else that might keep all the non-existent people of the Universe occupied. However, it's not worth embarking on a long discussion of it now, because it really is terribly complicated. For further information see Chapters Seven, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Fourteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Nineteen, Twenty-One to Eighty-Four inclusive, and... most of the rest of the book.

SBC/Pac Bell/AmeritechATT/Cingular ....

[rickst29]

.... has a long history of cooperation with MS in attempting to hurt Google, and that's why they have always partnered up with Yahoo! I can't say whether the few remaining Telco monopolies cooperated with India independently of MS/Bing and asked Yahoo to do this, or whether Yahoo caved on its own. But I feel that India probably contacted Yahoo directly, and it was Yahoo's choice (reaching the same conclusion as Bing, under the same circumstances, but without any "collusion").

As for Yahoo being absorbed into Bing, or visa-versa-- Yahoo certainly IS sorry that they held out for too much money in rejecting the previous buy-out offers. IMO, though, it's now unlikely that Steve Ballmer will be an efficient "businessman" about buying them now: Yahoo's rebuff of the previous offers has made them an enemy of the "I WANT TO KILL XYZ!" variety, he's into another chair-throwing temper tantrum and wants to grind them up into a pile of raw sausage filing as revenge. It might be smarter business to buy Yahoo and it's customer base before destroying it, but Ballmer will spend energy and money to choke off their air supply first. He's got vast amounts of cash to pour into Bing and subsidize it's paid advertisers, or subsidize a cheaper "store" system for online small business. Yahoo tries to do whatever MS wants, and they were partners before the takeover battle.... but he can kill them, and I think that he really wants to.

The problem for MS killing Yahoo! by competition isn't the web search, and it isn't the support of online stores. It's the email client base. Even among clueless casual computer users, the nightmares of "HotMail" (together with it's "Microsoft Passport" security fiascoes) have taught them to never, ever become a client of a Microsoft-hosted email service again. If ATT/Yahoo mail gets killed, GMail wins.