Google tops in adult content search on mobile phones

Ms. Park, 37, has found that her sixth grade son left many search records of adult content in Google and YouTube on his smartphone. As soon as she searched in Google, adult content popped up. She said, “Google advertises itself as a good company but serves as a navigator guiding children to adult content.”

The Dong-A Ilbo conducted a survey on the mobile search engine market share in adult content for the first half of this year with Rankey.com, an online market survey service provider, and found on Tuesday that Google represents 91.2 percent of the market. It was followed by Naver (8.6 percent) and Daum (0.2 percent). The survey was based on some 60,000 Android mobile phone users in Korea and studied where they searched key words like “adult videos” or “adult novels” and adult websites.

Google accounts for only 9.1 percent in the Korean mobile search engine market. Koreans use Naver or Daum for general key words but Google for adult contents. Google took up 97.5 percent of the search of the words “adult videos,” which is the most searched words among adult materials.

Google has become a search engine for adult content because foreign operators like Google and YouTube are not subject to the Korean law. Korean search engines like Naver and Daum must have an adult verification process when a user accesses harmful content to youths since September 2012 under the Juvenile Protection Act and the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Data.

Google Korea said, “We are blocking keyword searches related to adult content through Safe Search (which filters adult content based on users’ reports), which we independently developed.” However, except for a few words such as “pornography,” “nude” or “adult videos,” Safe Search is not working.

A source from the Internet industry said, “New search words related to prostitution such as “kissbang (kissing room)” or “anmabang (massage room)” are not filtered by Safe Search.” The government actually does nothing about the blind spots for the youths. A source from Korea Communications Commission said, “Without Google’s active cooperation, we cannot correct the distribution of adult content under the current law.”