MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Blogger users who share sexually explicit content have been given a reprieve — Google has made U-turn decision over a policy that was set to go in effect March 23 banning the material from its blogging network.
Today, in an update by Google official Jessica Pelegio, the company said that in light of feedback relating to the new policy, Google has reversed its decision to ban explicit content entirely from the network.
Google, however, still wants bloggers to mark any sexually explicit material as “adult” so that people who don’t want to see such content can avoid it.
“This week, we announced a change to Blogger’s porn policy,” the Google official said. “We’ve had a ton of feedback, in particular about the introduction of a retroactive change (some people have had accounts for 10-plus years), but also about the negative impact on individuals who post sexually explicit content to express their identities. So rather than implement this change, we’ve decided to step up enforcement around our existing policy prohibiting commercial porn.
“Blog owners should continue to mark any blogs containing sexually explicit content as ‘adult’ so that they can be placed behind an ‘adult content’ warning page.
“Bloggers whose content is consistent with this and other policies do not need to make any changes to their blogs.”
Colin Rowntree, operator of adult search engine BoodiGo.com, told XBIZ that Google's U-turn on its Blooger policy for sexually explicit content was a surprise for him.
"The motivation appears to be an outcry from long term Blogger users from the LGBT community," Rowntree told XBIZ.
"But, who knows what the future brings at Google in general," he said. "This has prompted us at BoodiGo.com to start building a free blog hosting platform to give adult bloggers a safe and sane place for hosting in a totally adult-friendly environment.
"But, I always encourage people to get their own hosting, control their DNS and domain names, and avoid relying on mainstream tech corporations for much of anything these days."
While Google has reversed itself on the Blogger issue over sexually explicit content, it still has left intact its decision last year to ban adult entertainment-oriented advertising on its AdWords program.
Click here for Blogger's updated content policy.
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