SafeSearch and YouTube restricted mode

An Enterprise Threat Protector (ETP) super administrator, delegated administrator, or a tenant administrator can enable SafeSearch in a policy to block and prohibit adult or explicit content from search results that are completed with Google and Bing search engines. When end users in locations assigned to this policy complete searches with Google or Bing, this feature creates a canonical name (CNAME) record.

These conditions apply:

  • For www.google.com, ETP creates a CNAME to forcesafesearch.google.com.
  • For www.bing.com, ETP creates a CNAME to strict.bing.com.

This means ends users are routed to forcesafesearch.google.com and strict.bing.com when performing searches with these search engines.

Similarly, in a policy configuration, you can also enable YouTube restricted mode. This feature prevents users from accessing video content that contains mature content, language, situations, and more. You can select from these modes:
  • Strict. Provides access to a limited collection of video content. This is the most restricted mode.
  • Moderate. Provides some restricted access but is less strict than Strict mode. Moderate mode allows users to access a larger collection of video content.
  • Unrestricted. Provides access to all YouTube content. This option is selected by default.

ETP creates a CNAME for the following hostnames:

  • www.youtube.com
  • m.youtube.com
  • youtubei.googleapis.com
  • youtube.googleapis.com
  • www.youtube-nocookie.com

For Strict YouTube Restricted mode, these domains are a CNAME for restrict.youtube.com. For Moderate YouTube Restricted mode, these domains are a CNAME for restrictmoderate.youtube.com.