Bonum Certa Men Certa

From Live Search to Dead Search (aka “Bing”)

Sinking



Summary: Microsoft's renamed engine drops to oblivion shortly after its launch

ACCORDING to this new report, Microsoft's biased and potentially law-breaking search/decisions engine [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] is reaching the end of the road quite so soon, despite approximately $100 million in marketing.



To Microsoft, the online business is crucial for survival as debt comes knocking on the door. Here is the latest Mirosoft investor who seemingly loses hopes:

We've owned shares of Microsoft (MSFT) for almost seven years -- with nothing to show for it. I've been wrong on the stock, and something is wrong at the company. What is it?

[...]

It appears to me, however, that the wide variety of options presented by the internet makes it a much harder beast to control through monopolistic practices. Switching from one website to another is effortless. Most publishing now happens online, so proprietary formatting is gone. As a writer, I used to have to worry constantly about whether the format of my documents would carry over to the recipient. Not anymore. Almost everything is plain text anyway, or rich text, and both of those work anywhere. Blink! Just like that, compatibility with Word disappeared as a reason to keep paying money to Microsoft.

[...]

Exhibit one is the new Microsoft Bing. Have you seen it yet? It's the company's latest attempt to gain market share in internet search, where it just can't get any traction. Its inability to make headway in online search shows that it's stuck with the desktop, the very real estate that's declining in relative value because people spend less time there than before. Nobody is going to stop Googling stuff in favor of Binging it.

It's so lopsided online that Yahoo (YHOO) isn't interested in doing any kind of deal with Microsoft. Remember a little over a year ago when Microsoft tried to buy Yahoo, and Yahoo snubbed it? That's still going on. Yahoo feels more confident in its battle against Google (GOOG) without Microsoft on its side. Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz said last week at Bank of America's 2009 Merrill Lynch tech conference, "I personally think we would be better off if we never heard the word Microsoft." That's a pretty clear repudiation.

Bing is a convenient case-in-point for what ails Microsoft. It calls itself a "decision engine," which is already lame. When I search online, I'm no more making decisions than when I drive my car and "decide" at an intersection whether to turn or keep going straight. Sure, life is a series of decisions, but what I'm doing online with search is searching. I may be finding information to help me make a decision, but the main thing I'm doing is searching. So, already, the attempt to differentiate falls flat.

Beyond that, Bing is no better at helping me make decisions than the search results at Google and Yahoo. Besides, its real game becomes clear with its focus on buying things and enticing me with its garish cashback feature. That part is inelegant and transparently against my interests. Cashback pops up from the most expensive options, and tempts me to get a 5% rebate by paying 25% more on the price. This is straight from the playbook of discredit cards and the worst retail practices. Once I wised up to cash-back being a con from Redmond, the entire set of search results from Bing became suspect. If it's skewing the shopping results toward expensive items so it has a profit margin that enables it to give me 5% back and still retain a slice for itself, why wouldn't it skew search results in some way?

[...]

Disclosure: Author owns MSFT shares.


When more investors lose faith, they'll take their money elsewhere. This leaves Microsoft less capable of operating without more loans.

"I'm going to f---ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f---ing kill Google."

--Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO



Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Nonfree Software in My Bank, by Richard Stallman
Updated 8 hours ago
 
Yes, Microsoft is the Problem
"I am no MS shill."
Another Failed Use Case for Chatbots (LLM): Legal Advice and Analysis
They're just some self-discrediting toy that costs way too much to operate
Links 29/07/2025: More Pushbacks Against Slop and More Praises of Tom Lehrer
Links for the day
Gemini Links 29/07/2025: Purple Yarrow and Understanding Op Amps
Links for the day
This Monday WebProNews Absolutely Flooded the Web With Fake (LLM Slop) 'Articles' About "Linux", Google News Promoted Them as Legitimate
All of the following are fake articles attributed to pseudonyms or authors that don't exist; the images are also slop. Why does Google promote these?
Linuxiac is Not a Slopfarm, But at Least Some of Its Articles Are Machine-Generated Fakes
what we said about it was correct
Expect More Microsoft Layoffs
"Are more job cuts coming?"
Microsoft Behaving Like It's Running Out of Money to Pay Salaries
Does that seem like the behaviour expected from a company which claims it is "worth" trillions?
LWN Downtime Due to Linode, Not LLM Bots
"I’ve received an email letting me know that there is a potential for data loss."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 28, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 28, 2025
Links 28/07/2025: Science, Health, and Conflicts
Links for the day
Gemini Links 28/07/2025: Healthy Self-Image With Autism and a "New Life"
Links for the day
Links 28/07/2025: COVID-19 Sped up Brain Aging, "Circumvention is More Popular Than Compliance"
Links for the day
Richard Stallman is Usually Right Because He Thinks "Outside the Box"
he is able to observe society (mores and norms) as somewhat of an outsider
LWN Has Been Down for a Long Time, Another Casualty of LLM Bots?
Time will tell. How much time though?
Slopfarms Versus 'Linux' (and Against People Who Write Real Articles About GNU/Linux)
LLM slop in slopfarms by Brian Fagioli and Redazione RHC
Gemini Links 28/07/2025: Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray and Running pkgsrc in a FreeBSD Jail
Links for the day
Microsoft Turns News Sites Into Spamfarms
Is the site The Register MS the next IDG?
The Register MS/The Register US
On Saturday I contacted them for a comment (before issuing criticism)
Hacking revelations at Vatican Jubilee of Digital Missionaries
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 27, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 27, 2025
The Week to Come
Planning ahead
LLM Slop Has Only Been a Boon for Misinformation Online
The very same companies that were supposed to maintain quality (again, not limited to Google with PageRank) are now actively participating in generating and spreading slop
When They Tell You It's Free, Does That Mean No Charges (If So, Who's Paying and Why)?
there's "no free lunch"
We're Going to Focus Less on the Molotov Cocktail-Throwing Microsofters and More on Patents
We can get back to focusing on what we wanted to focus on all along
Just Trying to Keep Web Sites Honest (Journalistic Integrity)
the latest articles in LinuxIac are real
Links 27/07/2025: Political Affairs, Data Breaches, Attacks on Freedom of the Press
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/07/2025: Hot in Japan and Terminal Escape Codes
Links for the day
Links 27/07/2025: More Microsoft Layoffs Coming, Science and Hardware News
Links for the day
Links 27/07/2025: FSF Hackathon and "Hulk Hogan Was a Very Bad Man"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/07/2025: DAW Mixer Chains and Simple Software
Links for the day
The Register MS is Inventing or Giving Air Time to New Conspiracy Theories so as to Distort the Narrative As High-Profile Agencies Fall Prey to Microsoft Holes
But the problem is holes, i.e. Microsoft making bad products; the problem is Microsoft
Most Editors at The Register Are American, Including the Editor in Chief, a Decade-Long Microsoft Stenographer (Writing Prose to Sell Microsoft)
It's not easy to tell where the site is based (we tried) because it's hiding behind ClownFlare and CrimeFlare hasn't been well lately
Pushers of systemd Rewrite History (Richard Stallman Said UNIX "Was Portable and Seemed Fairly Clean")
Unlike systemd
"New Techrights" Soon Turns 2 (A Few Days Before the FSF Turns 40)
We have a lot more to say about LLM bots
When Silence Says So Much
Garrett, a 'secure' boot pusher, will need to defend himself in the UK High Court
The Register in Trouble
There is not much that can be done at this point
Trajectory of The Register: From News Site/s Into "B2B"... and Into Microsoft Salespeople
Something isn't right at The Register
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 26, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 26, 2025
Misinformation in Social Control Media
Social control media passes around all sorts of tropes
Slopwatch: Fake Linux 'Articles' and Slopfarms With "Linux" in Their Names/Domains
throwing bots at "Linux" to make some fake articles