Google, Microsoft agree to not show results for child abuse images

London – Tech giants Google and Microsoft have reportedly agreed measures in a bid to stop yielding results related to child abuse on their respective search sites.

The two companies have deemed as many as 1,00,000 search terms as related to child abuse and will no longer show image results, along with warning messages that such content is illegal.

According to the BBC, the UK Prime Minister David Cameron had asked the two companies, who together handle 95 percent of the online search, to take serious action against people getting access to illegal images.

However, Cameron has warned that if the measures aren’t appropriately delivered, he would bring forward new legislation.

The report said that both Google and Microsoft’s Bing would incorporate new algorithms or software instructions that will show no results to prevent searches for child abuse imagery.

Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt said that the company will soon roll out these changes in more than 150 languages, so the impact will be truly global.

Schmidt further added that they would now show warnings from both Google and charities, at the top of the search results for more than 13,000 queries.

Microsoft too explained that it will now show cleaner results adding that it has always had a zero tolerance attitude to child sexual abuse content.

Meanwhile, child protection experts opine that most illegal abuse images cannot be found via web searches, but are hidden on peer-to-peer networks with the use of encrypted networks and other secure methods.