ResourceBlog Article: Update/URL Change: A New URL for Google Encrypted Web Search; Some Students Used the Old URL to Bypass a Schools' Filters

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Saturday, 26th June 2010

Update/URL Change: A New URL for Google Encrypted Web Search; Some Students Used the Old URL to Bypass a Schools' Filters

Four+ weeks ago we posted info about the beta release that allowed users to encrypt their Google Web Search by using the interface at https://www.google.com. While that URL works, at least for the time being, the new official URL is: https://encrypted.google.com.

Why make the change?

From the Google Blog:

The site functions in the same way. However, if school network administrators decide to block encrypted searches on https://encrypted.google.com, the blocking will no longer affect Google authenticated services like Google Apps for Education.

...because encrypted search creates an obscured channel between a user’s computer and Google, users who go to https://www.google.com can bypass some schools’ content filters. This can make it hard for schools to stop students from accessing adult content. One option is for schools to use our SafeSearch lock feature, which is designed to help keep adult content out of our search results. But given how many computers some institutions have this is proving impractical in many cases. So to prevent students from bypassing their filters, some schools are blocking encrypted search. However, a side effect of this action is that it also blocks other services hosted at Google’s secure URL, including Google Apps for Education, and many of our other services which require authentication to keep information safe.

You can only guess the number of complaints that must have poured into the Googleplex.

It's interesting that the engineers at Google who talk with schools and school IT people all of the time, as part of Apps for Education, didn't see this one coming before the initial release. Also, why is the old URL still available and doesn't contain any info about the new address?

At this point, Google's encrypted service continues to only be available for Google's core web search service. In other words, no encrypted image, maps, news. etc.

Gmail and the web portion Google Voice (e.g. transcripts) also utilize encrypted/SSL technology.

Source: Google Enterprise Blog

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