MSN Blocks Porn Better Than Google and Yahoo   - 5,303 Views,

A report released this week by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) says that when it comes to Internet searching, and turning up adult content, MSN is better at blocking such results than either Google or Yahoo.

Whether this is a bug or a feature is left as an exercise for the reader.

And just how did it come about that your hard-earned tax dollars are being spent on searching adult material on the Internet (something which millions of Internet users happily do for free - wondering where you can get a job like that?) The House Government Reform Committee asked the GAO to determine how easy it was to access adult content which was on peer-to-peer systems, and apparently in the process the GAO discovered that MSN is good at not turning it up.

Says Linda Koontz, the GAO’s Director of Information Management, “When searching Google using a known search word, we were able to download 79 images, of which 11 were adult erotica,” adding that “Yahoo’s filter was largely ineffective in blocking pornographic and erotic images.”

So, apparently the problem is that Google and Yahoo’s search engines..um…worked?

According to the GAO, MSN is more effective at this because they use a filtering system similar to the one used by Kazaa, while Yahoo’s is more similar to Morpheus. See, Virginia? Peer-to-peer technology really does serve some legitimate purposes!

So, where do you want to go today?