Google Instant vets sexual searches, well sometimes

Hacker quarterly magazine 2600 has listed blocked words in Google Instant, many of which are sexual.

If you have been using Google recently (and we all do) then you may have noticed a change in their search functionality, now when you type in a search term you will generally see the results of that search dynamically generated as you type. Google Instant makes searching easier and more intuitive without ever having to use the search button.

As the magazine points out however, Google Instant has blacklisted an array of terms, mainly sexual, that it will not dynamically generate searches for. If you really want to look for naughty things then you still need to click the search button to see the results.

If we search for ‘crack' or ‘heroin' they are cool with that, but ‘lesbian' and ‘cocaine' are blocked, as is ‘domination'.

Google have said “It’s important to note that removing queries from autocomplete is a hard problem, and not as simple as blacklisting particular terms and phrases,” a Google spokesperson told PC Magazine. “In search, we get more than one billion searches each day. Because of this, we take an algorithmic approach to removals, and just like our search algorithms, these are imperfect.”

KitGuru says: Good thing for young kids, or pointless ?

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