We’re excited to tell you about the new and improved version of the Norton Safe Search feature, now available as part of the 16.7.2.9 update for NIS 2009 and 3.5.2.9 update for N360v3, as well as the 2010 product beta. We teamed up with Ask.com to deliver Norton Safe Search, and rolled it out in March as an update to NIS 2009 and N360v3. Some users were taken by surprise by the addition of Safe Search and the Ask.com logo to their Norton toolbars, and wanted to be given the choice to add it or not. We heard their feedback loud and clear, and took action to respond to these concerns by turning off the feature by default.
Over the past months, we’ve conducted extensive user research and surveyed hundreds of our customers for input. We’ve been hard at work making improvements to Norton Safe Search based on customer feedback, including adding a consent dialog that clearly explains what Norton Safe Search is and gives you the opportunity to turn it off if you choose. If you do decide to turn off Norton Safe Search, you’ll still get the full benefits of Norton Safe Web, which provides site ratings for search results on Google, Yahoo! and bing.com.
Norton Safe Search takes this a step further by delivering a fully customized search results page with built-in security features such as filtering out unsafe sites, an interstitial warning page, Privacy Safeguard, and other options such as allowing users to display only safe shopping sites. With Norton Safe Search, users have more control over their search experience.
By partnering with a search provider, Ask.com, we were able to co-develop a new safe search destination that goes beyond Norton Safe Web’s site ratings, quickly implement and iterate new safety features, and provide search data that can be used to enhance our site ratings.
We encourage you to check out the new and improved Norton Safe Search and give it a try. We’re excited about the improvements we’ve made and hope you will be too. As always, we’re eager to hear your feedback!