Bing makes a change, and the videos get G-rated again
By Angela Gunn | Published June 12, 2009, 6:32 PM
Smart Motion Preview, which allows clips to play samples from directly within Bing search results, took immediate fire upon launch of the site for allowing playback of explicit images and content. Microsoft's hoping that's all over now, as it announces two fixes that should ease the search site back down to safe-for-work territory.
In a blog post Friday afternoon, Bing general manager Mike Nichols outlined the changes. First, a separate domain -- explicit.bing.net -- has been set up for randy images and video. This should allow filtering software or humans looking to eliminate those results from search to do so simply.
Secondly, Bing will now return source-URL info in query strings for images and video content. That should allow entities that filter in that fashion to more easily catch explicit material just as they would other kinds of problematic content.
In his post, Nichols thanked everyone who provided feedback in teh wake of the launch, saying that "it helped [the team] quickly develop a solution and get it into production." A post last week about the problem, in which Microsoft offered an interim fix, garnered dozens of responses.
More seriously, why didn't Bing's developers deal with this issue in beta? I find it difficult to believe that testers didn't search for naughty content...
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|How do you mean? The product is still in beta stage.
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|"...explicit.bing.net - has been set up for randy images and video..."
Couldn't the guys at Microsoft come up with Bada.Bing.net for that sort of thing? Or were they afraid of the lawsuit from HBO...
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|LOL, Bada.Bing.net... that would so fit the bill there.
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|Laughing..I have to agree Bada.Bing.net puts all the silliness of this non-issue in perspective.
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