maybe as a safety net..Ask just banned certain keywords.. or maybe their farms are not groomed enough to reach maturity level search capabilites.

Wow.

I would be willing to bet that the majority of searches for pedophilia are not pornographic in nature. This is simply absurd. I did a research project last summer about sexual exploitation and this type of censorship would have seriously hampered me. Just Wow.

How to sustain credibility as a pro blogger? Bash your advertisers!
So as it seems all major search engines are violating basic human and constitutional rights like freedom of speech. Maybe you should nofollow all links to those engines?

Tadeusz,

I think the difference here is that this is in the US.

Hey, I have an idea. Let's elimate war by blocking searches for "war," "conflict," "arms," etc.

"rape" and "incest" return results though, so I guess Ask is okay with those.

What about the proper spelling paedophilia?
What makes Ask think that anyone inclined towards that would use the 'posh' term?
How very daft.

I used to be into necrophilia, bestiality and flagellation, but then I realised I was flogging a dead horse.

"beastiality" and "necrophilia" are blocked as well.

Try searching for "pedaphilia". Aren't the suggestions from the right cute?

http://www.ask.com/web?q=pedaphilia

If you think they deserve a slap in the face, you can digg this:

http://digg.com/technology/You_can_t_search_for_pedophilia_on_Ask.com

> Try searching for "pedaphilia". Aren't the suggestions
> from the right cute?

OK, so when you search for "pedophilia" they block anything, including scientific or journalistic paper. When you search for "pedaphilia", they suggest "pedophilia stories", "child porn", and "preteen girl virgin".

> How to sustain credibility as a pro
> blogger? Bash your advertisers!

(My goal is to treat companies advertising here just as companies not advertising here when news erupt on them. So that means neither bashing or loving them, but trying to remain neutral...)

is there a statement available from ask.com?

If google censors in china I don't unterstand it as a human being, but I get their point if they explain it, so maybe there's a reason for this blocking in the mindset of ask.com?

> is there a statement available from ask.com?

I asked for one an hour or so ago. Gary Price is checking.

I guess that leaves Ask firmly off the list of search sites that I would use for research purposes. Nice job of shooting yourselves in the foot, there.

I've done a number of projects and papers requiring statistics, including those of recidivism rates among pedophiles convicted of sex crimes. This violates Ask's TOS now? How...short-sighted and silly.

Okay, maybe I shouldn't admit to searching for this, but it's even more bizarre. "Sex with horses" is also blocked, but "sex with sheep" isn't.

More fun – "necrophilia" is banned, but "sex with corpses" is okay, as is "sex with dead bodies."

I'm just way too amused by this. No: "sex with dogs." Yes: "sex with puppies" and "sex with cats."

it is blocked also in spanish "pedofilia"

How does this impact Free Speech? Its perfectly legal and until a time comes when a search block actually affects me I don't care. But couldn't they go further to block terrorism related articles and such?

No block on "pedophilic", "paedophilia", "paedophile", "paedophiles", or "paedophilic".

Interesting

"nambla" & "boylove" and even "twink" aren't allowed

But shotacon, lolicon, toddlerkon, hentai GIRLlove and CHILDlove are. Hmmmm.

Funny. You can still search for "sex with young girls". And on the right it asks if I want to narrow my search, including the following possibilities: "little girls having sex", "young girls as sex objects", "preteen sex" and "young kids having sex".

Well, clearly the ban on "Pedophilia" as search term should have the whole child molestation problem cured by the weekend. Because that's what perverts who would want to look at child porn would type in to a search engine to find it.

Good job, Ask. It's about time someone cured this problem.

Here's the slashdot thread where this actually originated from:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=189177&cid=15580337

Poor Philipp, after all this keyword stuffing here Google Blogoscoped will be the number one place for pedofiles new to the net...