After pleas in November 2013 by U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron that tech companies do more – as part of their “moral duty” – to prevent internet users from searching for sexual material related to children, the two tech giants Microsoft and Google put new controls on their search engines which has resulted in a massive drop in child pornography searches, a study has revealed.

The study, conducted by Chad Steel, a George Mason University, Virginia VA, professor, revealed that, “blocking efforts by Google and Microsoft have resulted in a 67 percent drop in the past year in web-based searches for CSEM (Child Sexual Exploitation Material).”

According to the study search engines are by far the most common method of searching for such illicit material, and that blocking efforts by Google and Microsoft have had very positive results in the U.S.

Both tech companies revealed late 2013 that they would remove sexual content related to children from their indices, and also filter results of searches so that certain illicit searches would show warnings. The study revealed Yandex, a Russian search provider, that had not taken the same measures as Bing and Google Search, had seen no change in CSEM searches over the three years the study was conducted. Steel added that because of little or no law enforcement in Russia related to CSEM searches, pedophiles in the U.S. had turned to using engines such as Yandex. The study also found that smartphones and other mobile devices were used in 32 percent of all CSEM searches on Bing.

Researchers said that there is little evidence to corroborate what some offenders have said was “accidentally” stumbling across child pornography on the net. It further added that offenders “generally begin searching using broad terms like ‘preteen nude’, that are eventually refined to target specific content, using terms of art like ‘PTHC’ (preteen hardcore) or ‘boylover’. As such keywords are common, filters can detect offenders and have had a “rapid and significant impact on child sexual exploitation material searches”, but the study also stated that consumers will always find “new avenues to acquire contraband.”

The full study can be viewed here.

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