| ON: Content is age-appropriate for kids this age. | |
| PAUSE: Know your child; some content may not be right for some kids. | |
| OFF: Not age-appropriate for kids this age. | |
| NOT FOR KIDS: Not appropriate for kids any age. |
Parents need to know that Bing, an excellent search tool, makes it too easy to find and watch Internet sex videos. All a child has to do is hover a mouse over a sex video thumbnail and it starts playing. Unless you set your preferences to "Strict" we actually don't recommend kids use Bing. (Shortly after launch, Microsoft came up with a fix that involves pasting the url www.explicit.bing.net into Internet Explorer's list of sites to block. While this works, most parents either won't know about this fix or actually sit down and block the porn access.)
Microsoft claims its new search engine, Bing, is better than market leader Google because it uses a "decision engine" to help people make more informed choices. For instance, rather than display results according to popularity, Bing divides them into categories. Search on "laptop" or "digital camera" and results come back under six headings: Shopping, Brands, Top 10, Repair, Accessories and Images. Search on "HIV" and the categories include Treatment and Symptoms. Bing's best-known feature so far, though, is "smart motion," a preview mode for video search results. Simply hovering a mouse lets users see and hear videos inside thumbnails without leaving Bing.
Bing is fast and boasts some whiz-bang features, such as a search history. (Why has this taken so long? I'll probably dump Google and use Bing for this feature alone.) Bing really does make some decisions easier. However, some parents will think Bing is a tad too good at searching the Internet. Unlike other search engines, Bing pops up a dialog box whenever it finds adult content and asks if the user would like to turn off the Safe Search feature. (Google and Yahoo bury this setting on a preferences page.) The result? Even computer novices can easily disable the built-in filter and get an eyeful by passing the cursor over Bing's live video thumbnails. Bing is so new that filtering tools like Symantec's OnlineFamily Norton might not work with it. Until software updates are available – or Microsoft changes Bing – parents might want to monitor kids' Internet research.
Families can talk about sex before kids see it in action on the Web, which has for some time now been rife with free, hard-core porn; Bing just makes it easier to find. Respect for oneself and others, disease, pregnancy and parents’ personal beliefs can all be a part of the discussion.
| Genre: | Educational |
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