Norton Safe Search – New and Improved

Announcements
1

We’re excited to tell you about the new and improved version of Norton Safe Search, now available as part of the Norton Internet Security 2010 public beta.  Norton Safe Search takes the site ratings provided by Norton Safe Web 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. 

 

Norton Safe Search is completely optional and provides users 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 originally rolled out Norton Safe Search in March as an update to Norton Internet Security 2009 and Norton 360v3.  We quickly learned that users wanted to be given the choice to add the Norton Safe Search feature or not.  We took immediate 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.  Based on user feedback, we made several major changes to the Norton Safe Search experience including:

 

1) Obtaining consent prior to enabling Norton Safe Search and adding the search box to the Norton toolbar.

 

Consent_Dialog.png


2) Removing partner branding on the Norton toolbar to minimize confusion that we are installing a third-party search toolbar (all the search box code on the Norton toolbar is Symantec’s – not third-party).

 

Norton_Toolbar_with_Search_Box.png


3) Addressing data privacy concerns by working with Ask.com to make Privacy Safeguard easily accessible and simple to turn on/off.  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. 

 

Privacy_Safeguard.png 


4) Enhancing the Norton Safe Search results page to include additional security features making it easier to identify and avoid unsafe sites as well as embedding useful shopping safety information directly into the search results page.

 

Search_Results.png


We encourage you to download the 2010 beta here and give the new Norton Safe Search a try. We want to hear your feedback. Did you find these changes helpful?  Do you find Norton Safe Search useful?

 

Message Edited by KhanhT on 08-05-2009 05:33 PM
2

Thanks for the advanced warning Bill -- we all really appreciate that.

 

When you say:

 

<< We encourage you to download the beta here and give it a try.  >>

 

I take it you don't mean this instant, now, but after you announce PB2 ?

3

Yes, thanks for the heads-up!

4

Thanks from me as well. Will there be extra employees around here when released? There will be a lot of comments around this one

5

Yes. We will closely monitor the forums to address issues/concerns raised by users.

 

Thanks,

KhanhT

6

Hi gurus,

 

Have you had a chance to test drive the new Norton Safe Search? If you have build 105, you would see the changes we made (if your language settings is English-US/UK/Canada). You can also go to safesearch.ask.com and check it out. I would be very interested in hearing your feedback on how we could make it better.

 

Thanks,

KhanhT

7

Hello KhanhT,

 

I have been "test driving" the Norton Safe Search in between other testing on build 105, so my observations are only initial ones at this point.

 

I like the placement on the Norton Toolbar; it is easily accessible and well laid out while not taking up too much space. The feature to filter out unsafe websites works well. Right now I'm comparing the search relevance to other search providers I am familiar with.

 

I will have to check more thoroughly, but my perception is that it takes just a bit longer for IE8 to load with this feature on.

 

I'll get back in a day or two with more thoughts.

 

 

 

 

8

Unfortunately I have to amend my previous statement. The feature to filter out unsafe websites works most of the time.

 

Yesterday I was using search queries that I felt would return unsafe sites and the Unsafe Site Filter seemed to be working as in this search for "download software". No unsafe sites were displayed and on subsequent pages a different number of sites were removed and not displayed.

 

 

 

I just did a search query for "download free music" and no unsafe sites were reported to have been removed on the first page.

 

 

However near the bottom of the page, this unsafe result was listed. Clicking on this link invokes the Red X in the Norton Toolbar and the same warning message when the site is loaded.

 

 

As I went to subsequent pages for this search query, most unsafe sties were removed and not listed, but a few pages had this same conflicting result.

 

[edit: added content]

Message Edited by Phil_D on 07-23-2009 11:07 PM
9

Hi Phil_D,

 

Thanks for looking into this. What you just observed was not a bug but worked as designed. All the site safety markup for organic (non-paid) search results are done server-side by Ask.com using Norton Safe Search site rating data. Sponsored links (paid search results) are marked up by Norton clients. This is because sponsored links are retrieved and displayed by the ad network and not results coming from Ask.com search index. But more importantly is that all search engines have contractual terms with advertisers that might not allow them to mark up sponsored links.For that reason, we chose to only do server-side markup and filtering for organic search results. We don't have the ability to filter out unsafe sponsored links. Does that make sense?

 

Thanks,
KhanhT

10

Hi KhanT,

 

I appreciate the technical explanation you presented, and I now better understand the mechanics of the Unsafe Site Filter.

 

However, I think that the majority of folks who may come across this issue will assume that the Unsafe Site Filter is not working as advertised - just as I did. I may have missed it, but I did not see any documentation about this.

 

My concern is that even though a technical and legal explanation is available, if it is offered "after the fact" it may be perceived to be "damage control" on the part of Norton.

 

For the benefit of this new program, I would suggest a proactive approach, outlining in plain language the functionality (or limitations) of this feature in some search results. Putting the information up front would help eliminate confusion and bolster confidence in the program.

11

Good point. I will see if we could add it to the FAQs (being reviewed) as well as maybe adding a pop-up that provides a little more explanation on how the Unsafe Site Filter works and its limitations when user clicks on the "Filter Out Unsafe Sites" button.

 

Thanks,

KhanhT

12

Thanks KhanT,

 

I think your ideas will help avoid unnecessary concerns and make for a better user experience.

13

BillR,

 

Will this new and improved version be limited for use in North America and Canda as was posted previously regarding the NIS 2010 beta Safe Search feature?

 

Regards

 

 

Matt

14

 16.7.2.9?

I Click on live update several times a day and have not received a version update to 16.7.2.9.

I’m still using version 16.5.0.135…

15
itsme wrote:
 16.7.2.9?

I Click on live update several times a day and have not received a version update to 16.7.2.9.

I'm still using version 16.5.0.135...

The update is being released in a controlled manner. Please see the announcement about the update for more information:

http://community.norton.com/norton/board/message?board.id=nis_feedback&thread.id=65000&jump=true

16

Thanks for your reply.

 

I wasn't even aware of an updated version release as it was listed with windows 7 compatablity, etc.

I'm not interested in windows 7 so of course I didn't read the post.

 

 

17

doesn’t ask.com get links to many many bad sites?

18
Tony_Weiss wrote:
itsme wrote:
 16.7.2.9?

I Click on live update several times a day and have not received a version update to 16.7.2.9.

I'm still using version 16.5.0.135...

The update is being released in a controlled manner. Please see the announcement about the update for more information:

http://community.norton.com/norton/board/message?board.id=nis_feedback&thread.id=65000&jump=true

 

The 16.7.2.9 patch is being "delayed" due to problems faced by many users on which the 16.7.2.9 patch is being distrubuted.  See this post: http://community.norton.com/norton/board/message?board.id=nis_feedback&thread.id=65030
19

I for one am really looking forward to the full release of 16.7.2.9 and the opportunity to try out the new and improved norton safeweb / safe search.

 

I just have one question. If not in this new norton build are there any plans to make safe search and its features available without the need to have the norton toolbar turned on? Or perhaps take the safeweb rating embedded in the toolbar and (using IE as an example) embed the rating of the page being viewed inside its own tab or in the url address bar?

 

Currently I do not mind that much having the toolbar because I only have it and the menu bar enabled in IE7. However, it just bothers me to see so much browser real estate being wasted by the sheer size (and inability to be combined with other toolbars) of the norton toolbar.

20

I just received the new 16.7.2.10 update for NIS 2009 and here is my opinion of it...

 

Norton safe search is a clever way to make search engines far more secure. However, I do not like the fact that to use the new features that I like (blocking all bad/redx sites, not having your data stored on safeweb servers) I have to do all of my searching through norton's version of ask.com.

 

These features should be settings within the actual norton product and therefore would be in effect for all popular search engines. I for one use google more than any other search engine.

 

Also, I noticed that when I opened IE7 norton asked me if I wanted to enable safe search. I clearly unchecked the box and clicked ok, however, norton's safe search is still a search engine option in IE's search box (the box in the upper right hand corner that I don't know the official name for). Please provide us with another patch, hotfix, or at least a workaround that will remove this but won't interfere with the core functions safeweb.