Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Zany Filtering in the Dogpile Search Engine:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_05_27-2007_06_02.shtml#1180462481
So go to [1]dogpile (a search engine results aggregator, it appears),
and enter "gun" or anything with it ("gun control," "guns of
navarone," and more"). You'll get this response, unless you have a
cookie set with dogpile from a previous iteration:
You've entered a Web search term that is likely to contain adult
content.
Would you like to:
View Unfiltered Dogpile Web results with Adult Content.
View Filtered Dogpile Web results with NO Adult Content.
Filtered Results only include Web results from partners that
provide such results.
Warning!!! If you are under 18 or live in a place that viewing
adult content is prohibited, please revise your search.
Your Search Filter is currently moderate.
Of course, "sex discrimination" and anything else with "sex" will give
you the same response; "breast cancer," however, doesn't, even though
other "breast" queries do. "Murder," "making meth," and lots of other
queries do not give this response.
Now I don't want to suggest that the filter is particularly onerous.
In fact, in some ways it's the opposite: It lets your kids avoid it
just by clicking on "View Unfiltered Dogpile Web results with Adult
Content," or, at most by following the Preferences link in the search
results (if you've set a preference that prevents the above warning
from coming up). Dogpile even prominently tells the user, with every
batch of search results, "Your urrent preferences are set to filter
results for this type of keyword and/or search. Click here to change
your preferences." Oh, and the first result in the "heavy" filtering
mode for sex? "Free Sexy Webcam Striptease Videos" (which seems to be
exactly what the name suggests).
On the other hand, how can we know? I'm not aware of whether dogpile
actually filters out much gun stuff using its filter. The [2]no
filtering query returns 65 results while the [3]heavy filtering query
returns 62 results; I haven't compared them closely, partly because
the most obvious difference is in the order of results -- for
instance, heavy filtering gives the Wikipedia entry for "gun" as #1
and the official site for "gun the game" as #2, and no filtering
reverses that order.
But dogpile's description of its filtering hardly instills confidence:
It [4]describes the filter as being "designed to filter out sexually
explicit material from your results." If that's all dogpile is doing,
there seems to be little reason to warn readers about searches
involving "gun." Something is happening under the hood, and we don't
know what it is -- an inherent problem with all filtering software,
but even more of a problem when one part of the site tells you one
thing about the filter ("designed to filter out sexually explicit
material") and another part tells you another ("gun" is "a Web search
term that is likely to contain adult content"). Doesn't make this
search engine look particularly trustworthy, it seems to me.
Thanks to Peter Buxtun for the pointer.
References
1. http://www.dogpile.com/
2.
http://www.dogpile.com/info.dogpl/search/redir.htm?r_fcid=415&r_fcp=top&advanced=1&top=1&nde=1&qcat=web&q_all=gun&q_phrase=&q_any=&q_not=&topadvancedsubmit=Go+Fetch%21&lang=&tviewby=1&qk=20&qafterm=01&qafterd=01&qaftery=1990&qbeforem=05&qbefored=29&qbeforey=2007&domaint=&adultfilter=none
3.
http://www.dogpile.com/info.dogpl/search/redir.htm?r_fcid=415&r_fcp=top&advanced=1&top=1&nde=1&qcat=web&q_all=gun&q_phrase=&q_any=&q_not=&lang=&tviewby=1&qk=20&qafterm=01&qafterd=01&qaftery=1990&qbeforem=05&qbefored=29&qbeforey=2007&domaint=&adultfilter=heavy
4.
http://www.dogpile.com/info.dogpl/search/preferences.htm?r_fcid=283&r_fcp=right&ver=10&msAdultWarn=1
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