

Microsoft's Bing Refuses Search Term "Sex" In India - gasull
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/06/06/2338233/Microsofts-Bing-Refuses-Search-Term-Sex-In-India?from=rss

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ideamonk
Microsoft has finally understood how to generate buzz and get publicity...
even without having to spend 100 million dollars.

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dmnd
I doubt it's intentional. Pornography is illegal in India (see
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography_in_india#Online_por...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography_in_india#Online_pornography)).
Microsoft is being conservative when complying with the Information Technology
Act of 2000.

"According to the act, anyone publishing or transmitting or causing to be
published or transmitted content of a pornographic nature can be punished with
imprisonment or a fine." -
[http://in.reuters.com/article/paidmediaAtoms/idIN19619307872...](http://in.reuters.com/article/paidmediaAtoms/idIN196193078720090603)

~~~
ideamonk
What if someone needs information on sex (something which is so natural to
human beings)

instead of "To get results, change your search terms." I should at least be
given a wikipedia link or pages with information on safe sex, etc..

"To get results, change your search terms." and no option to turn the filter
off -- bad user experience

sex isn't pornography right!

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jsz0
It seems like Microsoft has a bad habit of letting lawyers, executives, and
accountants sink good products & services with arbitrary and silly
restrictions on how you can actually use it.

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endtime
This is slightly tangential, I guess, but could someone explain this facet of
Indian culture to me? I have heard that India can be very socially
conservative, but, well, the Kama Sutra did come from there. Is there a sort
of Victorian dichotomy of public conservatism and private debauchery? Is it a
religious thing? Is the Kama Sutra the product of an older culture that no
longer really exists? Are there strong generational divisions on this sort of
issue?

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kamawhosits
The Kama Sutra is so old there's a whole chapter on what to do with your tail.

~~~
sho
Did you create that account for the sole purpose of making that joke!?

~~~
yesidid
Yes I did.

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gommm
Oh and I thought that I was going to give microsoft a chance and try using
bing instead of google... But yes I can confirm it, here (in malaysia)
searching for sex returns "THE SEARCH SEX MAY RETURN SEXUALLY EXPLICIT
CONTENT." (and all in caps as if they needed to shout it on top of that)

No way I'm going to use a search engine like this.

~~~
froo
... and so the trolling begins.

Seriously though, this is news on HN why? MS not allowing a sexual term in
India.. ooo, what about Google helping the Indian authorities on the arrest of
an Orkut user over making comments about a Political leader in India, even
though freedom of speech is one of the six fundamental rights the Indian
Constitution grants its citizens.

Which do you think is the worse of the two?

It's not that I'm pro-bing, I'm just anti-anti-bing. How about we give the
site a few months to fuckup before we start with the comments like above.

I'd much rather see people judge the site based on its merits rather than get
so instantly polarised before it's had a chance to find its footing.

~~~
gommm
Well it's simple I'm currently living in Malaysia if a search engine doesn't
allow me to search for things I'm not going to use it...

I'm not much pro-google either for the reason above... It's just that I think
such action from MS is short-sighted (and don't tell me it's because of the
local regulations since Google and Yahoo here do search for those terms).

Now it's true I guess it doesn't add much to the discussion, it's just that
I'm quite irritated when I see a company that self-censors in order to get the
local governments to appreciate them.

~~~
froo
Well, simple question... have you used Bing extensively before today? If so,
have you searched for content of a sexual nature and if not, do you honestly
care?

For all we know, it could have been an oversight on MS's part (the site is
less than a week old) and it will be a simple case of switching on or off a
setting eventually, like what you can do with Google.

EDIT - I signed into Bing using my Live account and noticed theres a setting
to filter sexually explicit content like with Google, so perhaps this is the
same thing, maybe you just need to sign in to do it.

EDIT #2 - I just switched to India & Malaysia's settings (was on Australia)
and noticed that you couldn't set location or the sexual settings (seemed like
a recurring theme), but then switched to China and noticed you could set
Location, so perhaps its just a bug

~~~
gommm
I switched to bing as my main search engine 3 days ago to test it out (I like
the idea of having more than one search engine with significant market shares
so I had to give it a try). Now it's true I hadn't search any content that
triggered the filter in that time (I don't only think about that :-) ) but not
long ago I was looking at what was the legality of having pornographic photos
uploaded by users in a user generated content site and if it was better to
filter them out systematically or wait for members to report such photos and
those search wouldn't have worked on bing.

But as said, it's mostly an emotional argument on my part because I don't like
companies to self-censor themselves when they could help the countries to
become more opened..

I've also signed into Bing with a live account and didn't notice such a
setting... maybe it's also disabled in Malaysia? Anyhow, I'm one of those
strange people who block the google, bing and yahoo cookie because I don't
really want search engines to have a complete history of my searches
associated with my profile so this wouldn't be enough...

EDIT: Small fact in passing: while it blocks the english term 'sex', it
doesn't block the malay word 'seks'... Strange now this term is also blocked??

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boundlessdreamz
It is blocked in germany and in many other countries. Try searching for sex in
bing.de

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dkasper
In the US version of the site you can change this setting in the preferences
tab, but it doesn't seem to be available for India or many other countries for
that matter. I think putting this setting in and making a link to the
preferences on the block page would solve the problem for most people would it
not?

