A critique of Google’s SafeSearch from CNET News featuring a quote from Librarians’ Index to the Internet’s Karen Schneider:
PartsExpress.com proudly touts itself as the Net’s No. 1 source for audio, video and speaker components–but online shoppers who rely on an optional feature in the Google search engine to block porn sites would never know it.
By an accident of spelling, the domain name of the Ohio electronics retailer includes an unfortunate string of letters, “sex,” which is enough to block the Web site from Google’s filtered results.
Let me get this straight…..
First of all, it appears to me that the default preference is not Safe Search. Therefore, one will be able to pick up Parts Express on the moderate filter preference and on the unfiltered preference if they ran the search (I actually confirmed this by running the search).
Second, because Safe Search isn’t the default setting it doesn’t cover everyone searching Google. I’d be interested in seeing the number of Google users that use Safe Search (I bet the number of Safe Search users is pretty small, percentage wise).
Third, no matter how big or how popular Google is, one doesn’t have a right to be listed on Google. The woman quoted in the story acts as if she is somehow entitled to be listed on Google.
Here is her quote:
“Traffic from Google can make or break a business,” said Maria Medina, whose family-run clothing business at ALittleGirlsBoutique.com doesn’t pass the SafeSearch censor. “Here I am, a mom of four children, creating an at-home business that sells little girl dresses and accessories, in order to spend more time with my children, and I have been filtered out as not being family friendly. Ridiculous.”
I appauld her going out on her own and wishing to spend time with her family but booh friggin’ hoo. Her company does show up on moderate filtering on Google. In addition, I believe some companies actually pay for advertising (It doesn’t appear that she is a sponsor link advertiser). She is trying to get a free three course lunch off of Google and she is complaining because she only gets two of the three courses. Bottom line, showing up on an internet search engine is not a right or entitlement.
If Google wants to have filtering as an option, more power to them.
I think the CNET News title to this article is a bit misleading especially when the Safe Search feature is one of three different filtering options.
No filtering software is perfect,
I suspect email filters also filter out legitimate email messages.
Re:Let me get this straight…..
You really are a meanspirited little thug, aren’t you?
Re:Let me get this straight…..
You know, Tomeboy made the point that filter opponents seem to be demanding perfection from filters. Let’s turn that around, shall we, and ask you censorship advocates why it is you expect perfection from the free market place of ideas?
NO system is perfect, but a free marketplace has a damned sight fewer flaws than a filtered marketplace.
Google Filter
Well the good news is this will completely cripple their Adsense business because it goes well beyond filtering your domain name. Adsense scans your keywords and content.
And delivers free public service adds to those who do not have adds available.
And apparently if you are selling an anti-porn filter you do not qualify to have your add delivered because of the word porn. ( The irony of that is not lost on me) The good news is they will probably have to pay attention to that. At this moment I imagine Overtures server is melting.
Re:Let me get this straight…..
free marketplace has a damned sight fewer flaws than a filtered marketplace.
Come on fang-face, it is an OPTIONAL filtered marketplace. You can choose to search Google three different ways: Safe Search, moderately filtered and unfiltered.
Re:Let me get this straight…..
To you I give a white feather.
Re:Let me get this straight…..
Hmmmm..a reference to…”The Four Feathers”! Nice! Sudan…kind of like Iraq. Good luck.
Re:Let me get this straight…..
It is optional, but the Moderate setting is turned on by default. Moreover, there is nothing on Google’s home page to inform the user of this. If you don’t click on Preferences, you’d never know about the filtering settings. If Google had some message on their home page to indicate that filtering was enabled, this entire issue would be moot.
Re:Let me get this straight…..
Here is the description of moderate filtering:
By default, moderate filtering is set to exclude most explicit images from Google Image Search results.
It sounds like moderate filtering goes after images only.
If Google had some message on their home page to indicate that filtering was enabled, this entire issue would be moot.
They do, you simply have to click the link to “Preferences”. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t take much effort to find this information.
Re:Let me get this straight…..
“The First Amendment admits of no hecklers veto.” One of your Chief Justices, IIRC. Furthermore, as I have pointed out a number of times, one of the two greatest issues about filtering is that it permits an abdication of responsibility. He’s your child, you watch out for him. Don’t restrict the rest of the world just because you can’t be bothered to raise your brat yourself.
AAMOF, pchuck, think of it this way: Ultra-conservative and fundie lunatic “child experts” have been complaining for years about how children aren’t being raised with proper values. If you could make the internet a 100% child safe environment, then you would actually remove an incentive for parents to watch their children and teach them those proper values. The internet simply become a new and improved glass teat for the wired generation. And they sure as hell aren’t going to get much of an education from even a completely child-proofed internet because all that information is much too unstructured and chaotic.
Not to mention that there wouldn’t be any information left for them to look at. I reiterate: There is nothing that cannot be found offensive by someone somewhere.
Re:Let me get this straight…..
Don’t restrict the rest of the world just because you can’t be bothered to raise your brat yourself.
I’ll repeat, it is optional. It is not restricting the rest of the world, it is an option. You can choose to run Safe Search or you can choose to run the search unfiltered. It gives you another choice.
In other words, Mrs. Smith’s third grade class can search for images on Google with Safe Search and fang face can search for images on Google without filtering. You see, fang face is unrestricted in his searching on Google.
Regarding the rest of your post, I’m sure that is an acceptable argument against Google switching over to exclusively Safe Search mode but that does not appear to be the case. Does it?
click here
Actually you simply need to *KNOW* to click on the link to reset the preferences so that you won’t get filtered. And that knowledge is something you have to already know, or have told to you.
If you don’t already know that simple step, how do you ever figure it out?
— Ender, Duke_of_URL
Re:click here
And that knowledge is something you have to already know, or have told to you.
Or read about it from the Google web site; the site that one happens to be searching.
Give me strength! If you had an inquisitive bone in your friggin’ body you may want to search around the web site a bit before, after or during your searches. This stuff is not some guarded secret.
I suspect the Google web page was purposefully designed to be very basic and simple. There are 12 links and the search box on the page. I also suspect that a first time user would look at the page and say “hey, I’d like to figure out what these things mean” and then they would click the links.