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Finding Pornography on Bing.com - A Comparative Review

By John McCormick  

You've all seen the TV ads for Microsoft's latest effort to garner a bit of the Google user universe (and AD revenue) but just how good and how different is Bing.com?

Rather than wasting time on more general search questions, which many people will ignore, let's cut to what might just be the single most important feature when it comes to determining whether the search engine will succeed - how quickly you can find new pornography.

BASICS

Bing copies Google's and Clusty's "clean" approaches to a home page by having very little on the initial search page - Bing's main difference is that, unlike the other two, it has a big photograph on the home page - one which changes every day. This makes for a nice if possibly confusing appearance but something which makes initial loading much slower for those many people around the world who still have dialup.

Google's home page includes instant links to:
Images
Video
Maps
News
Shopping
Gmail

Bing's home page lists:
Images
Video
Shopping
News
Maps
Travel
Along with several currently popular searches

Clusty's home page targets:
News
Images
Wikipedia
Blogs
Jobs

PRIVACY

Do you care who knows what topics you have researched?

Bing, like Google, collects and uses data on your searches.

"We use the information we collect to provide the services you request. Our services may include the display of personalized content and advertising.

We use your information to inform you of other products or services offered by Microsoft and its affiliates, and to send you relevant survey invitations related to Microsoft services.

We do not sell, rent, or lease our customer lists to third parties. In order to help provide our services, we occasionally provide information to other companies that work on our behalf."

No need to go in to what Google does, they collect information on virtually everything and use it to generate revenue.

Neither privacy policy is a problem as long as you realize your searches are being tracked (and could potentially be seen by the government (any government) or third parties.

Since Clusty mainly advertises how well parent company Vivismo's search technology works, the search engine takes a different approach - it doesn't collect or keep any information.

Here is their privacy statement.

"In the web's early days, search engines didn't care whether you were animal or human, as conveyed in this classic New Yorker cartoon. How times have changed!

Now search engines want to know you very well indeed: your queries, the pages you visit, the books you buy, the email you send, your age, sex, zip code, etc. etc. This new world is an inviting target of snoops or agencies that want to analyze, censor, or monitor you.

We at Clusty don't track you. Our toolbar doesn't track you. We don't want to know your email address.

Just search, all the time. No questions asked."

STILL PORN

Now for the important question - how fast can you access porn on these three search engines?

On both I began testing by selecting "images," then entering PORN as the search term.

Bad news for some, but great news for parents and many others, the initial image page displayed by Clusty.com had NO nude or really pornographic images so an accidental search wouldn't produce anything embarrassing.

On Bing.com you get three filter options for images from none to strict. To make sexual images display you must indicate you are over 18 years of age - or be able to read well enough to click on the "agree" button.

With no filter set you get a vast array of pornographic images to choose from.

The same goes for Google (but you all knew that already, didn't you?)

VIDEO PORN

Clusty doesn't offer a direct "video" link.

Google has a video link as does Bing.

Selecting that link on Google, the "porn" search produces some video images with descriptions - if you click on one a larger video loads in - sometimes rather slowly. (I didn't wait to time it.)

The same "video", "porn" search on Bing displays a lot of thumbnail images with little description but uses the "roll-over" type of activation so moving the cursor to the image animates the thumbnail image.

IMPORTANT DIFFERENCES

As a professional researcher, author, security specialist, and long-time reporter, I think the privacy issue is vital - the most important aspect of ANY search engine if you have even the slightest concern about what information companies are collecting about you.

In that respect I pay little attention to what companies say about how they protect the information they collect.

Once they collect data I know they will store it and then someone can subpoena it, hack it, or perhaps just buy it.

If your search engine depends as heavily on advertising for finance as Google then you know they are collecting a lot of data about you. Google and Bing make no secret of their aims in monitoring your searches so this isn't a criticism, just a reminder of what is happening.

Clusty doesn't collect information on your search terms, plant cookies, or offer special services if you provide information on which you are, so there is data to store and therefore no files to hack, obtain by court order, or purchase.

These days I think the great "jobs" search feature on Clusty is a vital service, especially since it is free.

John McCormick is a reporter, /science/medical columnist and finance and social commentator, with 17,000+ bylined stories. Contact John through NewsBlaze.