MSN Search Blocking Results For XFree86? 875
Peacefire writes "Thomas Shaddack spotted this on http://www.root.cz/ (in Czech) -- if you go to http://search.msn.com/ and
search for 'XFree86', it tells you that you've 'entered a search term that is likely to return adult content', and directs you to the porn search engine NightSurf.com, which lists a bunch of porn sites that ostensibly match the term 'XFree86'. If you search for 'XFree86' on Google, however, it's clear that the top matching terms returned by a normal search, are XFree86 sites, are not a bunch of porn sites. MSN is apparently blocking the specific term 'XFree86' and not just filtering on something stupid like the 'X' or the 'Free', since you can search for 'XFree85' and 'XFree87' with no problem. And search terms like 'Linux', 'AOL' and 'Macintosh' are allowed, so at least MSN hasn't simply blacklisted all competitors' keywords as 'porn', but why would they be blocking 'XFree86'?"
What's weird (Score:5, Interesting)
And so does XFree87 [msn.com]
Here's a search for a possible culprit - just x86 [msn.com]. Seems fine, although notice how the first 9 results are all AMD, with some impostor Intel claiming #10 spot (and it's not even Intel's site, it's Solaris on Intel document).
But back to searches for XFree86. So it wasn't the X86 part, how about
free86 [msn.com] - oh, look, XFree86.org is listed with Microsoft search engine after all. You just don't search it by name, search it by keyword that's reasonably close.
X Windows (Score:4, Interesting)
Hmm... (Score:3, Interesting)
MSN has strange blocking restrictions (Score:5, Interesting)
BTW is you search for XXX (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What's weird (Score:3, Interesting)
Shameless... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Oh, they block Linux, Macintosh, and other term (Score:2, Interesting)
In my (admittedly limited) use of MSN, top non-sponsored results are vaguely comparable to what Google returns.
Re:MSN has strange blocking restrictions (Score:2, Interesting)
Search for "search engine" (Score:5, Interesting)
MSN [msn.com] lists itself first, and google is fourth - higher in the rankings than it is on google itself.
MS New Linux Lab (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:What's weird (Score:5, Interesting)
curiouser and curiouser said alice
Compare "SCO" on MSN v. Google (Score:5, Interesting)
And while XFree86 gets blocked on MSN, let's see how a search for "SCO" fares on the two engines. (Top 11, "Because it's one more, you see".)
Hmmmm. Yep, no surprise there.
MSN Search Results "SCO" (Top 11):
1. SCO www.sco.com
2. California State Controller Kids Site www.kids.sco.ca.gov
3. Newsgroup: biz.sco news:biz.sco
4. Reuters - MyDoom Worm Aimed at SCO Web Site
5. DealTime - Sco Product www.dealtime.com/xGS-sco~NS-5320
6. InfoWorld - SCO: IBM Cannot Enforce GPL
7. Computer Business Consultants, SCO Unix Sales, Service & Support
8. Calibex.com - Simple Tech SCO-QUBE3/256 256MB for Sun
9. Bagpipe Marches & Music of Sco CD - Amazon.com
10. Northern New Jersey Council - Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco www.nobebosco.org
11. Northern New Jersey Council - Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco www.nnjbsa.org/camps/nobebosco
Google Search Results "SCO" (Top 11):
(Note: Includes the Google News "teaser" links just added.)
News:
1. SCO posts $2.3 million loss - InfoWorld - 2 hours ago
2. Perth firm files complaint against SCO - The Age - 9 hours ago
3. User group hits out at SCO - VNUNet - 11 hours ago
4. www.caldera.com
5. SCO | SCOsource www.caldera.com/scosource/
6. OSI Position Paper on the SCO-vs.-IBM Complaint
7. The SCO Group | SCO Grows Your Business sco.com/
8. the SCO v IBM info website
9. Analysis of SCO's Las Vegas Slide Show
10. California State Controller's Office www.sco.ca.gov/
11. GROKLAW www.groklaw.net/
Re:What's weird (Score:5, Interesting)
and that search also returned xfree86.org as the first link.
So to me it does not look like "some porn sites plastered the term "XFree86" all over themselves", but more like a suspiciously blocked search query.
XXXfree86 (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:XFree69 (Score:5, Interesting)
no porn warning on this one.
what a f***** up world
Re:Search for "search engine" (Score:3, Interesting)
On another note, I find it quite funny that AltaVista is listed number one in google for search engine.
Nope (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe it does, but "xfreee86" sounds the same, and returns real search results, and "xfree66" has more "six/sex" sounds in it and returns real search results. They're not filtering by sound.
Re:BTW is you search for XXX (Score:3, Interesting)
So they accept paid ads from porn sites, but they intercept and redirecto XFree86 sites. Hmmm
I bet this is Nightsurf.com's fault (Score:2, Interesting)
My theory is backed up by the fact that if you search for "xfree86 xfree86" rather than just "xfree86", you get back the right results.
I bet MSN Search would like to be notified of Nightsurf.com's trickery...
Shifted characters (Score:4, Interesting)
xfree86 and xfree86 (Score:3, Interesting)
Interestingly, if you search for xfree86 xfree86 [msn.com]"you get the xfree86 home page [xfree86.org]
No sign of porn.
Re:XFree69 (Score:3, Interesting)
anyone else notice google [msn.com] on msn returns google as a 'top pick'? kind of like use this search engine instead please
They blocked other things in the past ... (Score:5, Interesting)
We talked about doing the full investigation, and suing, etc. and even called the district attorney since this seemed to be criminal behaviour to us. We decided we were too small and too poor to pursue the matter as a civil case, and I don't know what happened w/ the DA.
I thought it was pretty foul play, it was one of a number of incidents that helped turn me into a bitter Microsoft-hater.
But these work? (Score:5, Interesting)
Catholic Schoolgirls
Hot teen sluts
upskirt shots
pictures of women licking my balls
sexy XFree86 girls
So, even if XFree86 was unintentional, what content do they think they're protecting us from?
"x free 86" works... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:XFree69 (Score:3, Interesting)
no warning either.
it is very strange
Definition (Score:1, Interesting)
"To refuse to serve (an unwelcome customer) at a bar or restaurant. To throw away."
So MSN must think that XFree86 is some kind of restaurant fetish. Oh waitress.....
Re:XFree69 (Score:3, Interesting)
online, only msn france has some fancy keyword charts (might take a while until french /. readers' xfree searches turn up there):
ie only [www.msn.fr]
(won't work with opera, for obvious reasons)
Sorry, no (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Paranoids out there (Score:3, Interesting)
The Xbox has more than likely been searched for more than 10,000 times.
I'm willing to bet our boys in Redmond have sold this search term to a porn site and nothing more. If I was running a porn site, the lonely geeks looking for XFree86 would look pretty much like my target demographic. So why not pay to hijack a popular search term amongst lonely geeks - Microsoft will take the heat, and in the meantime, many lonely geeks will take a "side trip" from XFree86 to hotblondeswithgoats.com
Re:Paranoids out there (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, you mean like XBox, right?
MSN search engine blacklisted Apache.org (fixed) (Score:4, Interesting)
I tried to submit similar article on Jan 22 but it was not accepted. Evidently Microsoft responded to the complain and Apache is not blacklisted anymore. Below is my original one month old post. Sorry URL show proper results now and I did not saved the original search results.
A few days ago I noticed that every time I use Internet Explorer (i.e. MSN search) to look for apache related projects I never got a reference to apache.org websites.
Examples: jelly script [msn.com] , maven apache [msn.com] , cocoon framework [msn.com].
*.apache.org sites never came up. I am not even talking about listing it as "featured web site". It never came up as the link at all!!! The best you would get is a reference to XML.com [xml.com] website discussing the technology but not to technology itself.
Even search for "apache web" got the reference www.apache.com [apache.com] as the featured site instead of www.apache.org [apache.org] Only "apache" got "apache.org" as the featured site at the second place after oil related Apache corporation. Yahoo and Google as you would expect did proper job.
Re:What's weird (Score:2, Interesting)
But then it seems that many simple modifications of blocked words, even combinations of individually blocked words, are not, themselves, blocked, despite the obviously adult nature of the top hits.
For instance:
"porn" [msn.com] is blocked
"voyeur" [msn.com] is blocked
"sex" [msn.com] is blocked
"voyeur sex" [msn.com] is blocked
But "voyeur porn" [msn.com] is not blocked
I'm guessing that the entire search field, not just individual terms, is what is checked by the filter. There's probably a case where an unblocked word + a blocked word are actually blocked, but I've been unable to find a specific case showing that.
Re:What's weird (Score:3, Interesting)
Obviously there are tons of porn sites out there that include the keyword "XFree86" to divert searches, and the results of those searches have probably accumulated in the MSN search cache, far outnumbering legitimate XFree86 pages. All the other variations such as "XFree69", though, never hit the porn sites, so there's no porn cache for them. Instead, in those cases the search engine starts searching from X, then XF, then XFr, until it eventually makes a legitimate hit on XFree.
Even "XFree86 porn" won't hit the porn cache, because the search engine will first look for the entire phrase "XFree86 porn", find nothing, then start searching from "X".
XFree86 porn (Score:5, Interesting)
Dlugar
Re:What's weird (Score:2, Interesting)
After reading through some other comments, I found one:
"xxx" [msn.com] is not blocked (likely because of the movie), while
"xx" [msn.com] is blocked
Meanwhile,
"xxx porn" [msn.com] is blocked, yet
"xx porn" [msn.com] is not.
This filter makes no sense.
Re:XFree69 (Score:3, Interesting)
I suspect it's probably a bug instead of malicious intent (I know, what's the chances of Microsoft having a bug...)
-- Rushfan
Re:nothing to see here, lets move it on.... (Score:4, Interesting)
But this:
"x sex" does not block. "xx sex" does not block. "xxx sex" blocks. "xxxx sex" blocks. "xxxxx sex" does not. "sex xxx lesbian" does not block. All of those searches do returns tons of porn, however.
Could also stregthen my argument. In my opinion at least, of these terms, "xxx sex" and "xxxx sex" are the one most likely to be used by someone searching for porn, and would therefore have the highest search frequencies. They all have more or less the same porn triggers, like the 'x' and 'sex', but the ones with the greatest theoretical frequency are the ones that get blocked.
The "sex xxx lesbian" is the exception, I would have assumed that to be more frequent as well. But it's also the only three word phrase, which means that while the concept of "sex xxx lesbian" might be frequence, perhaps that particular order is not very common.
To further the test:
sex xxx lesbian PASS
sex lesbian xxx PASS
lesbian sex xxx BLOCK
lesbian xxx sex PASS
xxx lesbian sex BLOCK
xxx sex lesbian PASS
What does that mean? I have no idea. The two blocked searches are what I was expecting to be the most common searches, but that's just my opinion. Actually, analyzing this, I think it supports your theory. The keyword could be "lesbian sex" and the attachment of "xxx" is just coincidence.
But it was fun to type in a bunch of sex terms and claim I was doing research for
Re:XFree69 (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Follow the money folks (Score:4, Interesting)
Something very fishy is going on as it looks like there has to be some sort of agreement for nightsurf to like a specific query. Changing the dealcode to msn on one of the Bomis search strings redirects you to the dealcode=other site and porn is only for grownups warning.
Re:XFree69 (Score:5, Interesting)
I just tried "XFree86 XXX" and guess what? No porn warning and the first 15 of about 4768 links to domains like sourceforge.net, gnomedesktop.org...
The inner workings of corporate MS are truly beyond human comprehension.
Re:Search for "search engine" (Score:3, Interesting)
That's because there are no links to MSN; everyone's browser points there to begin with.
I was joking at first, but I may be on to something here...
Re:XFree86 porn (Score:5, Interesting)
Seach for porn [msn.com], and you'll get the nightsurf thing. Search for nude [msn.com], and you'll also get the nightsurf warning. But- if you search for porn nude [msn.com] then you'll get no warning at all!!! This is stupid even for microsoft standards.
search for a substring of xfree86 (Score:2, Interesting)
They all pointed to an Xfree86 page. Kinda funny how just "XFree86" doesn't work. No wonder they want to own the search engine world. I'm not even anti-M$, but that's crap!
Anti-trust (Score:2, Interesting)
Usualy such windows software that spies, snoops or hijacks your browsing experience, to be legal, has to have a written disclaimer that you must click through. Gator for example, does warn you (if you read the microscopic print) that it will distort your browsing experience.
I would say that MSN is as much of a browser hijacker as that in terms of manipulating the sites you view, but without the legality of the click through agreement.
MSN's lack of any such statement or click through combined with it's default homepage status has to be ripe for an anti-trust suit I would say. You just can't get more incriminating evidence than this.
This works - XFree 86 (Score:1, Interesting)
Search for "XFree 86" (Score:4, Interesting)
Looks more like a (stupid) bug, but then again bugs always cause undesired results.
Probable explanation (Score:5, Interesting)
(1) The search term contains certain things that tend to find X-rated content. The algorithm might look for dictionary terms and try to form seperate words out of the serch phrase (so if you looked for hothornybabes it would notice that it contains the words "hot" and "horny" and "babes".) So, "Xfree86" probably gets flagged because it's "X" followed by "free" and some irrelevant number. But, wait, you say 'Xfree87" and "Xfree85" don't trigger, so that can't be it, right? Well, it still could be because of the next point:
2) It probably *also* only triggers the redirection if the search result returns a lot of hits.
So 'Xfree86' triggers a lot of hits, and contains red-flagged terms, while 'Xfree87' has the same flagged terms, but triggers few hits, and so isn't assumed to be porn.
Anyway, that's one possible explanation. I'd attribute this to stupidity on the part of the algorithm before attributing it to maliciousness.
Why this probably isn't intentional... (Score:-1, Interesting)
What are probably the most common search terms for porn? "free xxx" "free x porn" etc.
The 86 is probably just seen as garbage, as the "x" and the "free" are ranked highly as likely pornographic search terms in its database.
Like I said, piss-poor search engine design. But no conspiracy theory. Though I expect nothing less from Slashdot posting an entire article on the fact that "XFree86" gives a weird warning on some search engine.
Re:What's weird (Score:3, Interesting)
The question is how this might end up on the list. Perhaps, and this is just a guess, the list of adult-content related phrases was compiled by MS. This makes sense, because NightOwl would want to buy the top X phrases searched for, so they get the most bang for their buck. The person at MS scanning top searched URLs to find the top 1000 (or more, who knows) adult-related ones mistakingly marks "xfree86" as adult, not knowing what it is. That's certainly not too far-fetched, with the "x" and the "free".
Of course that's just me guessing, but it seems pretty damn plausible and likely. Mostly because why would MSN block xfree86? It doesn't make a damn bit of sense at any level. They don't block linux. XFree86 isn't exactly a household term, someone searching for that likely already knows that there other OS's out there besides Windows. To think there was some plot is just silly.
Re:Why this probably isn't intentional... (Score:2, Interesting)
Then again, I typed "xfree85" into nightsurf.com, and got the EXACT SAME 162 RESULTS, in the same order, with only the keyword changed...