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Canadians who are uninterested in porn rejoice as Google Instant comes north

While some of us are still waiting for our new Twitter accounts to be switched over, at least one tech firm has rolled out its new hotness in Canada: Google.ca is now providing results under Google Instant, the rapid-fire, predictive search that Yanks have been getting for weeks now. The service launched yesterday in Canada and shaves whole seconds off those pesky searches by not requiring users to hit the enter button. If Googlers were sitting around bemoaning the milliseconds of their lives that were wasted while waiting for the nearly-but-not-quite-instant results, then it’s time to celebrate.

But not if you’re looking for porn (on the Internet? Who would do such a thing?). Or, as it turns out, any number of controversies.

CTV News reports:

Google Instant is a new feature that spits out search results while a user is typing, without the need to click the Search button.

It was launched earlier this month on Google.com and as of Wednesday, started appearing on Google.ca for some users.

But there are certain words that Google won’t help users spell. A publication aimed at hackers called 2600 Magazine has already compiled a list of such words. It’s several hundred entries long.

Some seem innocuous but could lead to adult pages, like “amateur,” while others are blocked because they’re associated with hate speech or other offensive content.

To be clear, if you really want to find that naughty content, you’ll still be able to through the laborious and time-consuming act of pressing the enter key. For the curious, the blacklist (a misnomer, because typing these phrases gets you a screen of white) is here.

After messing around with it a little, it’s hard to see what all the fuss is about; the results seem to be identical, and it’s not like Google was super-slow to begin with. Rocco Rossi continues to own the top result when searching for “Toronto mayor,” and “Toronto restaurants” still gets a flurry of dots all over the map.

A neat little advance in the search world, but we’re still waiting for everyone to get the new Twitter before we go nuts. Incidentally, we already have ours.

Canadians can now guess Google’s bad word blacklist [CTV News] • Google Instant bans dirty (and not so dirty) words [Toronto Star] • Google Instant Search kills SEO? No, but the hype goes on [Digital Journal]

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