Kiddle: Google-powered safe search engine for children

Kiddle is a new search engine that has been designed as a safe search engine for children.

It is usually not a good idea to leave children, especially young ones, alone with a device that is connected to the Internet as there is a lot of weird and outright disturbing stuff on the Internet that can shock even adults that are Internet veterans.

Even harmless search terms like eat, big or Inspector Gadget may return results that are not suitable for minors, and it does not really matter if you are next to your child when that happens or not, as you'd probably not expect explicit results to be returned for these types of searches.

Search engines try to filter out results by enabling Safe Search filters by default which filter explicit content before results are returned to the user. It is easy to turn off safe search on the other hand on all major search engines, and there is always the chance that explicit results fall through the cracks and are returned.

Kiddle

Kiddle combines Google's Safe Search filter with editorially controlled keyword and site blacklists. Basically, it prevents you from running searches for specific words or phrases, and blocks certain sites from appearing in the results at all.

All you get is an error message if you run a search for a blocked keyword that states: "Oops, looks like your query contained some bad words. Please try again!".

Some search terms or phrases, like "gay" or "homosexual" which usually return safe and explicit content, are blocked as well.

A couple of test searches using web and image search on Kiddle yielded good results, or more precisely, no results at all or only harmless results depending on the search term.

Ultimately, it even seems to be too restrictive when it comes to what is allowed and what is not. Search terms like "birth", "death", or "suicide" are all blocked likely for the same reason that other search terms are blocked that may return safe and explicit results. The main issue here is that it prevents searches for "suicide prevention" and other searches that include a blocked keyword as well.

It seems to be better at blocking explicit content than the Safe Search mechanisms of popular search engines which reduces the chance of results being returned that are not suitable for minors.

Inappropriate keywords or sites that are still returned in the search results may be reported to the Kiddle staff. According to the form, it will take about a business day to review the request and take action.

The service's privacy policy is surprisingly short revealing that no personally identifiable information are collected.