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Yahoo, Flickr censor porn sites in India

by D.S.Rajput | December 29, 2009 at 11:14 pm

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New Delhi: The two Microsoft bing Yahoo and Flickr too have introduced filters to prevent Indian Internet users from accessing sexual content. According to the report, Yahoo search engine and Flickr photo-sharing site (owned by Yahoo) altered their sites earlier this month to prevent users in India from switching off the safe-search facility. However, according to another report, Yahoo filters are so far confined only to image search, unlike Bing's. Microsoft has also barred Indian users of its Bing search engine from searching for sexual content. Users who do try to search for sexual material receive a notice informing them that "your country or region requires a strict Bing SafeSearch setting, which filters out results that might return adult content". The clampdown is reported to be in response to recent changes to India's Information Technology Act of 2000, which bans the publication of pornographic material.

Earlier this year, the scope of the 2000 act was widened to enable action to be taken against a wide range of providers, from internet search engines and internet service providers to cyber cafes.