# wifi providers changing search settings **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 14, 2013, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wifi-providers-changing-search-settings/663515 "2013-07-14T23:57:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![obbn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/d6d6ee/32.png) [@obbn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obbn)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2013, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wifi-providers-changing-search-settings/663515/1 "2013-07-14T23:57:09Z")
Hello everyone, I’m sitting in the local Target parking lot while my wife is shopping. I’ve had enough of shopping today and decided to wait in the car. I’ve got my tablet with me so I decided to do a little Web surfing using Target’s wifi. I went to google to look up something and noticed my safe search setting was on the most restrictive one. I thought this was odd since I never have the filter set to anything but off, so I went to the settings, changed it to off, went to do my search again and there it was on the strict setting again. I tried Bing and same deal. I get they are blocking people from looking at porn while in their store (which I wasn’t doing. I like porn as much as the next guy/gal, but not in public). However, I found it strange that they are able to alter your search settings. They are doing this and my browser isn’t playing games with me, right? ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@Doug\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_K)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2013, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wifi-providers-changing-search-settings/663515/2 "2013-07-15T05:03:55Z")
Yes, they can doing that. I’m one of the tech people at a small school district. The web filter we currently use and the one we had before have the ability to force safe search mode. Before we got a filter with that capability we had to block image searches. ---
**Author:** ![obbn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/d6d6ee/32.png) [@obbn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obbn)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2013, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wifi-providers-changing-search-settings/663515/3 "2013-07-15T07:15:33Z")
> [@Doug\_K](#): > > Yes, they can doing that. I’m one of the tech people at a small school district. The web filter we currently use and the one we had before have the ability to force safe search mode. Before we got a filter with that capability we had to block image searches. Genius! Defeating porn with the users own browser. I’m quite impressed. ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2013, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wifi-providers-changing-search-settings/663515/4 "2013-07-15T11:53:22Z")
Is this a permanent change? What other browser settings can they change? ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2013, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wifi-providers-changing-search-settings/663515/5 "2013-07-15T12:41:55Z")
> [@ZenBeam](#): > > Is this a permanent change? What other browser settings can they change? But is this a browser settings change or a Google (website) settings change? ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2013, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wifi-providers-changing-search-settings/663515/6 "2013-07-15T14:02:57Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > But is this a browser settings change or a Google (website) settings change? It’s a “way that your network architecture is configured to handle Google searches” change. Straight from the source: > [@](#): > > To enable SafeSearch throughout a school network, you can use a [proxy server](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server) to append **&safe=active** directly to all search URLs. This will enable strict SafeSearch. > Google sends search queries along URL paths like **[Google](http://google.com/search?)…, [Google Images](http://google.com/images?)…**, **[google.com/s?](http://google.com/s?)…** Schools that activate SafeSearch with a proxy should keep their filters updated to include **/search** , **/s** , and \*\*/images \*\*URLs. > **[Lock SafeSearch for accounts, devices & networks you manage - Google...](https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/186669?hl=en)** > > If you manage accounts, devices, or networks, SafeSearch can help you filter explicit content from Google search results. If you want to keep SafeSearch on and prevent users from changing the setting, ---
**Author:** ![Blakeyrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blakeyrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blakeyrat)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wifi-providers-changing-search-settings/663515/7 "2013-07-16T18:21:34Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > But is this a browser settings change or a Google (website) settings change? Neither; it’s just simple URL rewriting. Whenever the router sees a URL that looks like a Google or Bing search URL, it adds the parameter to turn safe mode on. The URL param overrides the Google account setting (specifically to make this possible, in fact), but your account setting hasn’t changed. Once you leave the Target parking lot and connect to another wifi network, your tablet will search like it did before. ---
**Author:** ![gazpacho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6f9a4e/32.png) [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wifi-providers-changing-search-settings/663515/8 "2013-07-16T18:41:04Z")
> [@Blakeyrat](#): > > Neither; it’s just simple URL rewriting. Whenever the router sees a URL that looks like a Google or Bing search URL, it adds the parameter to turn safe mode on. The URL param overrides the Google account setting (specifically to make this possible, in fact), but your account setting hasn’t changed. > > Once you leave the Target parking lot and connect to another wifi network, your tablet will search like it did before. How does this work if people use https when connecting to google? When I connect to [www.google.com](http://www.google.com) it is an encrypted session. The proxy should not be able to know what I am sending to google and if it chould it should not be able to change the data from my browser to google. Are they disallowing encrypted traffic to google so it defaults to an unencrypted connection? ---
**Author:** ![Blakeyrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blakeyrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blakeyrat)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wifi-providers-changing-search-settings/663515/9 "2013-07-16T20:21:45Z")
> [@gazpacho](#): > > How does this work if people use https when connecting to google? When I connect to [www.google.com](http://www.google.com) it is an encrypted session. The proxy should not be able to know what I am sending to google and if it chould it should not be able to change the data from my browser to google. Are they disallowing encrypted traffic to google so it defaults to an unencrypted connection? That’s a good question. I wager it doesn’t work, but I don’t know. ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wifi-providers-changing-search-settings/663515/10 "2013-07-18T01:07:10Z")
> [@gazpacho](#): > > How does this work if people use https when connecting to google? When I connect to [www.google.com](http://www.google.com) it is an encrypted session. The proxy should not be able to know what I am sending to google and if it chould it should not be able to change the data from my browser to google. Are they disallowing encrypted traffic to google so it defaults to an unencrypted connection? From the same link I posted above: [quote] **SSL Search options** When searching over Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), the connection between the user and Google is encrypted. Because the connection is encrypted, the query rewriting techniques described in the Enforce SafeSearch section will not work. As a workaround, you may disable SSL using our No-SSL option (described in greater detail below). Note: SafeSearch Lock works with SSL and doesn’t require the No-SSL option to function. If the scenario described above is problematic for your school, Google provides a NoSSLSearch option. The network administrator can adjust the DNS configuration for [www.google.com](http://www.google.com) to point to our NoSSLSearch end point. For regular http traffic, the user will see no difference. **Blocking access** [ul] [li]When students search using [https://encrypted.google.com](https://encrypted.google.com/), content filtering systems in place on your network may not be able to read their searches or Google’s response. If this is problematic for your school, you can block [https://encrypted.google.com](https://encrypted.google.com/). When students continue to search using [http://www.google.com](http://www.google.com), your content filtering will work as it always has in the past.[/li][/ul] [ul] [li]Google products may refer to or depend on resources on [https://www.google.com](https://www.google.com). As long as you do not block [https://www.google.com](https://www.google.com), your organization should still be able to access all of these services.[/li][/quote] [/ul]