Google announced plans to implement sweeping changes to its Blogger adult content policy earlier this week. The decision was met with an abundance of criticism, however, prompting an expeditious about-face from the Mountain View-based company.
Addressing the matter on the Blogger community forums, a Google spokesperson said many expressed concerns about the introduction of a retroactive change as well as the negative impact on individuals who post sexually explicit content to express their identities.
Rather than implement the announced change, Google has decided to step up enforcement around the existing policy that prohibits commercial porn.
Bloggers whose content is in line with this and other policies relating to adult content do not need to make any changes moving forward. They are, however, encouraged to continue to mark blogs containing such material as "adult" so they can be placed behind an adult content warning page.
The revised adult content policy would have retroactively made blogs with adult content private, a substantial move considering some people have had accounts for more than 10 years. New blogs created from March 23 that contained adult material would have been subject to deletion or "other action."
Google never really provided a reason for the sudden change earlier this week but the message that its change of course sends is clear - they don't want droves of users defecting to rival Tumblr.