Notorious child abuse website removed from Bing search index

A notorious child abuse website has been delisted from Microsoft's Bing search engine

Prostasia Foundation promotes cooperation between child protection experts and the tech industry

San Francisco – March 15, 2019 – A major child pornography website was removed from Microsoft's Bing search engine today, in response to a report from child protection organization, Prostasia Foundation. The website in question, which has also been reported to police, was a gateway to images and videos of children as young as five years of age being sexually abused. The website was not located on the "dark web" and could be accessed using an ordinary web browser.

The website had been the top search result for a well-known search phrase used to locate child sexual abuse material, and had first been identified by the Foundation in January in response to an anonymous tip. The use of the search phrase in question to locate child sexual abuse material had first been documented by researchers in 2009.

"Of course it's not a good idea to publicize child abuse websites or the means of accessing them," said Prostasia Executive Director, Jeremy Malcolm, today. "But this can mean that notorious gateways to child abuse remain online for longer than they should."

Malcolm claims that the offending website had already been deleted from the Google search index when tested by the Foundation, but that it remains accessible using the same search phrase using other search engines. "Microsoft did the right thing today by removing this website from its search index, and we are in communication with other search engines to make sure that they follow Microsoft's lead," he said.

Prostasia Foundation is holding a gathering of Internet companies and experts in May, to discuss how they can better protect children from sexual abuse, without censoring legitimate sexual content such as artwork, fiction, blogs, and safe sex information.[1]

[1] https://prostasia.org/event/dialogue/

For further information, please contact:
Jeremy Malcolm (Executive Director)
+1 415 650 2557 – [email protected]
Prostasia’s website: https://prostasia.org

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Prostasia Foundation
18 Bartol Street #995, San Francisco, CA 94133
EIN 82-4969920
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