14 DAY TRIAL // The United Kingdom has recently embraced a new online policy to protect children surfing the web by blocking adult content, asking both Google and Microsoft to support the effort by cleaning results displayed on their search engines.
In a blog post published today, Jacqueline Beauchere, chief online safety officer, Trustworthy Computing, Microsoft, explained that blocking websites wasn’t quite the best way to go, suggesting that some other easier to implement methods could actually be more effective.
“Instead of blocking adult content from the view of anyone under age 18, many parents have adopted other approaches, particularly for older kids. These include first monitoring what teenagers see and do online, before resorting to outright blocking of certain sites and activities,” Jacqueline Beauchere says.
“In terms of online commerce, spam filters have helped rid our inboxes of unwanted email and, phishing filters—and our own savvy—have made us more astute when reviewing missives from so-called ‘foreign princes.’ Industry innovations coupled with consumers’ sound digital hygiene have reduced the number of debilitating worms and viruses compared to a decade ago.”
Beauchere hasn’t mentioned, however, whether Microsoft is indeed planning to improve its search engine filters in such a way that it would block online content.
Still, she does explain that Microsoft is continuously working on new technologies to protect children who browse the web, pointing out that adopting this kind of policy is less effective than it’s actually supposed to be.
“We’re developing new technologies to help combat online child exploitation, and working to put behind bars those who would do our children and others harm. These are all steps in the right direction. Still, no one individual, company, or entity can make the web safer on its own; it takes all of us, and it will continue to do so,” she concludes.