Google, Microsoft Vow To Wipe Out Child Sexual Abuse Images Online
Google and Microsoft have announced a series of measures that will erase indecent and abusive images of children online. The Internet giants, which cover 95 per cent of the online market, are making the online world a little bit cleaner and safer for children.
Search results linked to child abuse will be blocked across the Web, which means images and videos that contain depraved content won't appear for more than 100,000 different searches on Google anymore.
Google chairman Eric Schmidt told Daily Mail that they have "listened," saying, "We've fine-tuned Google Search to prevent links to child sexual abuse material from appearing in our results."
The restrictions are initially available in English-speaking countries, but will be expanded to cover other countries in the next six months.
He added that the company has developed a feature that will allow illegal videos to be "tagged" so all duplicate copies can also be removed from the search.
Moreover, Google will be giving organisations that fight sexual exploitation of kids the best technical support that they can provide.
"Google plans to second computer engineers to both the Internet Watch Foundation (IQF) here in the Britain and the U.S. National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). We also plan to fund internships for other engineers at these organisations," Mr Schmidt wrote to the Daily Mail.
"This will help the IWF and NCMEC stay one step ahead. The sexual abuse of children is a global challenge, and success depends on everyone working together - law enforcement, Internet companies, and charities."
Microsoft has also confirmed that it is introducing similar restrictions on its Web searches at the Downing Street summit on child pornography. Microsoft operates Bing and powers Yahoo! search engines.
"We're putting in place even stronger measures and deploying technology improvements to identify and eliminate Internet content that portrays child sexual abuse," Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said.
"Stamping out these horrific images takes a team effort, so Microsoft is working in close partnership with the Child Exploitation & Online Protection Centre, the Internet Watch Foundation, the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, Google, and the UK government among others."
The Downing Street summit was hosted by UK Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday to tackle the ever growing issue of child abuse and other illegal content on the Internet. Representatives from Google, Microsoft, and top UK Internet service providers among others met with the heads of the National Crime Agency to find lasting solution on the matter.