In a rare show of unity, Google and Microsoft are teaming up to take on one of the darkest corners of the Internet — child pornography.
On their search engines, that's Google.com and Bing, the companies are banning a list of 100,000 search terms that lead to images of child abuse. Thirteen thousand more terms will display warnings about the consequences of child pornography. (Via Channel 5)
In a letter to the Daily Mail, Google co-founder Eric Schmidt said the company expanded its efforts to combat child abuse thanks to the help of the British government.
"While society will never wholly eliminate such depravity, we should do everything in our power to protect children from harm. ... We welcome the lead taken by the British Government, and hope that the technologies developed (and shared) by our industry will make a real difference in the fight against this terrible crime."
The move is a political victory for British Prime Minister David Cameron, who recently began pressuring tech companies to crack down on child pornography.
Cameron: "What we were previously told couldn't and shouldn't be done, in terms of cleaning up searches for these vile terms — it will be done, it is being done:100,000 terms in 159 countries, not just here in the U.K." (Via Channel 4)
But the plans from the tech giants have drawn some criticism. A Motherboard writer worries banning broad search terms could censor the wrong content. "It's an impossible balance: block too much and you could target legitimate sites; block too little and the whole system is ineffective."
And Jim Gamble, former head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Center, or CEOP, says the plans won't even touch the peer-to-peer networks where the worst child pornography trafficking occurs.
"I don't think this will make any difference with regards to protecting children from pedophiles. They don't go onto Google to look for images. They share them in the dark corners of the internet on peer-to-peer websites." (Via BBC)
A June report published by CEOP estimates 50,000 adults downloaded and shared indecent images of children just last year.
