Posted on 01/09/2009 7:49:34 AM PST by NYer
A Catholic living near Lourdes in France has created a website intended to help other Catholics search the Internet without stumbling inadvertently into objectionable content.
Currently named Catholic Google — it might need to be renamed if Google objects to the use of its name — the website bills itself as “The best way for good Catholics to surf the web.”
That’s a debatable claim, according to a pair of recent posts here and here on the Reuters FaithWorld blog about Catholic Google by Tom Heneghan. Heneghan noted that the search website fails to filter a substantial amount of content that faithful Catholics would find objectionable.
In a phone call yesterday with Heneghan, Catholic Google webmaster Paul Mulhern acknowledged that some immoral content is slipping through, in the advertisements that are automatically generated by Google websites when a search is initiated (these ads are how Google websites make money).
Said Mulhern, “We’re in the process of trying to eliminate as much of the unsavory adverts as possible, but they have to be blocked by domain name, which is why it is taking some time.”
In any event, no search website is going to be enough by itself to secure a computer from all bad Internet content. Consequently, the Catholic Google website shouldn’t be viewed as a sufficient replacement for more comprehensive Internet filtering services, or for proper supervision of children when they are using computers.
In this article we published last month, Register Senior Writer Tim Drake delivered a state-of-the-art report on some of the means by which parents can work to ensure their families access the Internet in a moral manner.
And as the goal of safe surfing is obviously an important one, it’s to be hoped that Mulhern’s website will serve as another useful tool in helping Catholic families to achieve that goal.
That won’t last very long because of Google’s soon to be objections. Heck, I would too. Come up with something unique.
How about HeavenSearch?
This is a great idea.
There won't be any objections because they power it :-)
Is it supposed to be working now? I’m getting an error message.
Ixquick protects your privacy and deletes your Privacy details within 48 hours. Ixquick's results are very accurate and Ixquick can handle the most complicated of searches. It also offers an international phone directory, a search for the lowest prices on all kinds of merchandise, and much more...You can customize your searches to filter out adult content by going to Settings and checking the boxes.
There are a few kinks that need to be worked out. Go ahead and click 'continue' just below the error message.
Thank you for the link. That’s a nice sharp search engine. I especially enjoy the streamlined approach.
Thanks!
I’ve only been using it for about a week, but so far I LIKE it!
Filtering of porn can be done on regular Google. What I would find desirable is to order search results by their relevance to a Catholic. For example, searching for “Madonna” yields endless references to the pop singer, when I am looking for Marian art.
Did you search ‘Marian art’? That worked for me! :0)
This is a neat search engine. I’m going to pass it around!
Thanks for the new link.
Perhaps CATHOOGLE won’t have problems with Google. The LOGO is really neat!
I can work around Google; it was just a simple example. Google works by sorting matches by popularity of the page. If a million people search for “madonna” and click on the singer by this pseudonym, and a dozen people search for “madonna” and click on Raffaello, the singer will pop ahead of Raffaello. For Cathoogle the ratio might be better than 12:1,000,000.
Yes ... this has become quite the challenge. Note that Cathoogle is powered by Google. Give it a try and let us know the results.
What’s a CAT HOOGLE? Give it some decent, meaningful name, like Churoogle, Vatoogle, or Commugle!
I know. I was just teasing you. :o)
Well, here’s the first problem: no image search.
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