News: Google's porn filters under fire
Children using Google's SafeSearch feature, designed to filter out links to Web sites with adult content, may be shielded from far more than their parents ever intended.

A report released this week by the Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society says that SafeSearch excludes many innocuous Web pages from search-result listings, including ones created by the White House, IBM, the American Library Association and clothing company Liz Claiborne.

The omissions occur because of the way Google designed the feature, which can be enabled or disabled through a preferences page. The feature uses a proprietary algorithm that automatically analyzes the pages and makes an educated guess, without intervention by Google employees.

The report http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/edelman/google-safesearch/ http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/edelman/google-safesearch/

SafeSearch http://www.google.com/help/customize.html#safe

preferences page http://www.google.com/preferences
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-996417.html