01.20.11

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Microsoft Alleged to Have Tricked People Into Switching to Bing, Using a Rogue Site

Posted in Deception, Microsoft, Search at 12:40 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

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Summary: Rogue site harms people’s computers by installing “a toolbar and chang[ing] their search provider and home page to Bing.”

Included in the logs just posted is a story we only posted in daily links due to lack of time. The short story is that Microsoft is in the midst of another Bong [sic] scandal and shortly after it was revealed Microsoft retreated from it:

Is Facebook’s third largest advertiser really a site that tries to trick people into switching to Bing? Apparently not. Still, Bing’s not happy with the tactics and is ending its relationship with the publisher. The site, Make-My-Baby.com, now appears to have gone down. But earlier today, it was suggesting that people needed a plug-in to use it — one that would install a toolbar and change their search provider and home page to Bing. The site had allowed people to create baby characters….OK, I have some more answers from Bing. Make-My-Baby was an affiliate of Zugo….Bing also confirmed that it continues to have a relationship with Zugo. That also means that all the people who had their pages changed by Make-My-Baby will continue to get redirected to the benefit of both Zugo and Bing, as best I can tell, despite the fact that they were obtained in a way that Bing disagrees with.

Our readers did not all buy Microsoft’s story and to quote last night’s conversation about it:

DaemonFC I guess they got sick of all the “Why doesn’t Last.FM work?” posts 22:32
oiaohm Don’t worry its normally only temp.  MinceR 22:33
oiaohm First stage create more jobs than what is required. 22:34
oiaohm Second stage restruct the departments because they are  too expensive. 22:34
oiaohm Third stage sacked too many todo the jobs. 22:34
oiaohm then return to first stage. 22:35
oiaohm This is kinda a never ending goverment cycle. 22:35
–> cubezzz has joined this channel (~cubeman@maxhost.org). 22:35
–> tessier has joined this channel (~treed@mail.copilotco.com). 22:35
–> TRIdentica has joined this channel (~twitfolk@216.105.40.114). 22:35
–> TRT has joined this channel (~twitfolk@216.105.40.114). 22:35
oiaohm “first time the FCC has ever allowed discrimination on the Internet”  Boy people have short memories. 22:36
oiaohm Computserv anyone. 22:36
MinceR CompuServe isn’t internet, afaik 22:37
oiaohm It was a wrapper over the internet that was used to restrict access. 22:37
–> twitter has joined this channel (~pbj@173-17-111-185.client.mchsi.com). 22:40
twitter Read Write web notices that a toolbar scam is part of Bing market share gain.  http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebooks_3rd_biggest_advertiser _is_a_bing_affilia.php 22:41
TechrightsBot-tr Title:  Facebook’s 3rd Biggest Advertiser is (Allegedly) a Bing Affiliate Scam (With Updates)  .::. Size~: 74.46 KB 22:41
twitter That and the forced default on cell phones, new computers inflicted with Windows, etc. 22:42
oiaohm twitter: Problem is I cannot see who is behind that. 22:43
MinceR duh 22:44
MinceR it’s m$ 22:44
twitter you really can’t tell where hundreds of thousands of dollars for a make_my_baby.com scam comes from? 22:44
MinceR they’re still struggling to get people to use bìng 22:44
twitter no one would put up that kind of money on their own. 22:44
twitter It had to come from Microsoft. 22:44
MinceR they used to pay people to make them use whatever bìng happened to be called at the time 22:45
MinceR this is a different approach to the same goal 22:45
oiaohm I have not looked close enough at that. 22:45
oiaohm to check if the 3rd biggest has hidden any other back doors. 22:46
twitter this one hides in the fine print and the usual “you need a plugin to do this” 22:46
oiaohm Exactly what else is in the plugin twitter 22:46
twitter they are obvious frauds, ohm. 22:46
oiaohm I know they are frauds 22:46
oiaohm But are they are bot net master as well. 22:46
twitter so there’s no telling what kind of malware they push 22:47
oiaohm Really the total mix of malware will give us a better clue who they are. 22:47
twitter just like there’s no telling what Microsoft sends back to themselves via Vista and Windows 7 encrypted communications 22:48
twitter It’s someone who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote Bing.  They might also be a bot herder but that is irrelevant and the Bing issue is proved. 22:49
<– abeNd-org has left this server (Quit: Leaving.). 22:49
twitter Microsoft disowned them, as they do all of their scape goats. 22:49
DaemonFC Compuserve was an AOL-type service, walled garden 22:50
DaemonFC they both added internet access later 22:50
DaemonFC then AOL bought Compuserve 22:50
DaemonFC for a while, the Compuserve browser was based on Gecko, not IE/Trident 22:50
DaemonFC I think it went back to IE though 22:50
DaemonFC there was a beta version of AOL that used Gecko 22:51
oiaohm AOL netscape 22:51
twitter Microsoft Software, so bad the company has to pay people to use it. 22:51
DaemonFC no, the AOL client 22:51
DaemonFC there was a beta you had to be invited to 22:51
DaemonFC it used Gecko as the AOL browser’s renderer 22:51
twitter AOL bought Netscape, it was unnatural for them to not use the browser. 22:52
oiaohm When AOL bought netscape they did a hybred. 22:52
oiaohm Gecko trident 22:52
DaemonFC they never really used Netscape much 22:52
oiaohm In the AOL browser and in netscape 22:52
oiaohm What was basically the same thing. 22:52
twitter It was gone in the blink of an eye, then they fired the developers. 22:52
DaemonFC the Windows version uses IE/Trident and the Mac version uses Webkit 22:53
DaemonFC way back when, they used their own rendering engine though 22:53
twitter DaemonFC, uses AOL on Mac?  Wow! 22:53
MinceR lol 22:53
DaemonFC yes, it has Topspeed Technology to make my 56k modem go VROOM 22:54
DaemonFC uh huh 22:54
DaemonFC :) 22:54
MinceR that can’t be good for the modem :> 22:54
twitter zzzzoooooommmmmm 22:54
–> dtech has joined this channel (5da06baa@gateway/web/freenode/ip.93.160.107.170). 22:54
twitter have fun with the Bing news.  That search engine is not going anywhere soon. 22:55
<– twitter has left this channel. 22:55
* DaemonFC throws a Winmodem at Mincer 22:55
* MinceR parries it with a BFS 22:55
[Notice] -TRIdentica to #techrights- [boycottnovell/@boycottnovell] Another Software Company’s CEO (Named Steve) Expected to Leave http://is.gd/oyxBuS #microsoft #ballmer #xbox #kin 22:57
[Notice] -TRIdentica to #techrights- [schestowitz/@schestowitz] Another Software Company’s CEO (Named Steve) Expected to Leave http://is.gd/oyxBuS #microsoft #ballmer #xbox #kin #vista 22:57
TechrightsBot-tr Title: Another Software Company’s CEO (Named Steve) Expected to Leave | Techrights .::. Size~: 94.89 KB 22:57
oiaohm http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=OTAwNQ  I guess you have both seen this. 22:57
TechrightsBot-tr Title: Another Software Company’s CEO (Named Steve) Expected to Leave | Techrights .::. Size~: 94.89 KB 22:57
TechrightsBot-tr Title: [Phoronix] ULatencyD Enters The Linux World .::. Size~: 16.74 KB 22:57
MinceR oh, according to “How Does This Work?”, it could be independent of m$ 22:57
MinceR since it benefits Zugo as well 22:58
MinceR via affiliate commissions 22:58
oiaohm MinceR: link 22:58
MinceR same article 22:59
MinceR ( http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebooks_3rd_biggest _advertiser_is_a_bing_affilia.php ) 22:59
TechrightsBot-tr Title:  Facebook’s 3rd Biggest Advertiser is (Allegedly) a Bing Affiliate Scam (With Updates)  .::. Size~: 74.46 KB 22:59
MinceR there’s a sidebar titled “How Does This Work?” on that page 23:00

So what do you think? Innocent or damage control?

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