MSN, Google Slammed Over Porn Distribution

Techtree News Staff, Jan 12, 2009 1828 hrs IST

Search engines threatened with closure if they do not remove vulgar material and links to such material from portal

Internet search giants Google and Microsoft's MSN, among others, have been targeted by the Chinese government in their latest crackdown on pornography and vulgarity on the Web. The two search engines, along with China's popular website Baidu, have been threatened with closure if they do not remove all such material and links from their portal.

While Google and Baidu have been accused of carrying porn and lewd content, MSN came in for criticism for having a large amount of "inappropriate images" on its film channel and "select pictures" in its social messaging section.

Google and Baidu have since issued apologies and promised to remove all offending material. Google, in a statement, said that it had deleted all links to vulgar material from its search indexes and would prevent such material re-appearing.

A total of 91 sites have been shut down or blocked since the month-long campaign was launched last week, reported the Xinhua news agency. Chinese authorities have warned of tougher measures in the following days against law-breakers.

China has the world's largest online population at more that 250 million, with a majority of the users being people below the age of 30, according to state-owned China Internet Network Information Center.

While China has already taken the lead to make the Internet safe viewing for children, the UK government is also planning to bring in an international law to police the Web.

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USER COMMENTS

Dirt has always existed and will continue to exist, it is the responsibility of the parents to teach the children not to waste time with porn. Parents need to get more involved with their children and monitor their computer usage. Search engines like Google are automated indexers, it is impossible to go through all the results and filter out pornographic content without impacting performance. I think parental neglect is a lot more responsible for children viewing porn content than google. If you block google from showing pornographic results it will hardly improve anything. Children can always buy porn DVDs/CDs available for less than Rs.50. Buy lewd magazines, etc. Instead of blaming good technologies, we should start assuming our rightful responsibilities towards children and teach then right from wrong.

by P. Girish, Bangalore, on Jan 19, 2009 10:57 AM, Report abuse Reply

We are so lucky that we are in india.. hah no worries here our best and lazy cyber cops and govt. They just talk and we enjoy.-))

by SuxATbest, New Delhi, on Jan 12, 2009 10:05 PM, Report abuse Reply

..thats because they watch porn themselves. Consider that there are red light areas in almost all major cities and yet nobody (politicians) does anything to eradicate/rehabilitate them. This is quite similar to that.

by Ball, Bomb, on Jan 12, 2009 11:56 PM, Report abuse

here everything depends on money power ant politics,nothing will change as long these exist.we are all used to this kind of living and atitude,majority are happy too,cause they know how to make money out of this,we the innocents are the victims.

by Rayn, Riyadh, on Jan 18, 2009 06:55 AM, Report abuse