Microsoft to Indians, Germans, Turks and others: search for sex elsewhere!

Bing, Microsoft’s brand-new search enginge, has taken corporate-enabled filtering to new heights. Apparently, if you happen to be in China, Germany, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, or much of the Middle East,  and  search for the word "sex", all you get is this notice: "’THE SEARCH SEX MAY RETURN SEXUALLY EXPLICIT CONTENT. ...

Bing, Microsoft's brand-new search enginge, has taken corporate-enabled filtering to new heights. Apparently, if you happen to be in China, Germany, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, or much of the Middle East,  and  search for the word "sex", all you get is this notice: "'THE SEARCH SEX MAY RETURN SEXUALLY EXPLICIT CONTENT. To get results, change your search terms".

Bing, Microsoft’s brand-new search enginge, has taken corporate-enabled filtering to new heights. Apparently, if you happen to be in China, Germany, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, or much of the Middle East,  and  search for the word "sex", all you get is this notice: "’THE SEARCH SEX MAY RETURN SEXUALLY EXPLICIT CONTENT. To get results, change your search terms".

If you conduct the same search from the US, you get the proper results. This is easy to test, as Microsoft allows you to easily switch between countries (I’ve just done so for myself and can confirm that neither Indians nor Germans are allowed to search for "sex").

An article on Rediff speculates that in the Indian case this may have to do with the country’s Information Technology Act of 2000, which regulates the publishing and transmission of pornographic content.

Given how easy it is to switch between different countries on Bing (and thus avoid the restrictions), it’s obvious that the ban would be ineffective. So, what could it all mean? My guess is that Microsoft is preparing for long and protracted negotiations with different governments around the world over the suitability of its search results to national laws.

The Bing-ban could  mean that it has found a way to satisfy the governments and its own moral concerns – formally it does limit the search capabilities for lewd or potentially obscene items but it also knows that most Internet users would know how to byass these restrictions and would do little to stop them. This is, of course, the most optimistic reading of the situation. Another (much worse) option is that the ability to switch regions is a bug and would soon be removed, with Microsoft eager & ready to comply with the demands of the governments in question…

Evgeny Morozov is a fellow at the Open Society Institute and sits on the board of OSI's Information Program. He writes the Net Effect blog on ForeignPolicy.com

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