Bonum Certa Men Certa

Is This Bing or is it Bong?

Smoking pipe



Summary: Is Microsoft high or is Bong[sic] broken by engineering?

IN SIX previous posts we wrote about failures of Microsoft's latest name for a search engine [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. A new identity alone cannot resolve an identity crisis. There are four more failures and observations which this post shares. Here is a quick list.



Failure #1: Anti-Linux Bias



We already know that Microsoft tweaks search results to promote its commercial agenda. Stefano Forenza shows that Bing is biased against GNU/Linux, possibly by design.

What’s this crap ? It’s obvious that Microsoft didn’t payed those guys. (well.. maybe the first :-P ). But why Windows came up as a suggestion for the Linux search, and why the first two posts talk respectively about ‘Linux being inferior to Windows’ and ‘the issues in switching to linux’ ?.

If I were to think bad I would think Microsoft did tweak the Windows keyword to have more relevance than the others. Hyperlinking and pagerank would do the rest.


More details and some screenshots are included in the full post.

Failure #2: Anti Opera



Opera is giving Microsoft a real headache in Europe. What does Microsoft give to Opera users? Nothing.

Bing.com no gentlemen when you run Opera web browser



[...]

Hello, Mrs Kroes, …! It reminds you so much of the old DR-DOS tricks but this is even more silly for a new search engine which was supposed to get it right. One of the best and most popular web browsers, Opera, is not supported? Surprisingly everything works seems to work fine anyway when you select “Go to the map using this browser”.

The map service looks great, but it is not fully translated yet into German language. Additionally to the usual satellite images it adds a bird view perspective. I am from Germany’s largest navy port and I am quite surprised that you can get detailled bird view pictures of our military facilities. In the real world signs scare you that they may shoot at you. And if you take pictures, the police might be very interested in your identity and your actions may be interpreted as a criminal offence by a court.


Failure #3: Pro Pornography



Microsoft is blocking Google for allegedly being unsuitable for children. How hypocritical is that? Whereas Google makes pretty successful attempts at eliminating child-unsafe content for particular crowds, Microsoft has no shame.

This is just too good. One of the features of Microsoft’s just launched Bing search engine is that it auto-plays videos in results when you hover over them. Naturally, the first thing a number of people, like Loic Le Meur, did was search for “sex” or “porn.” The results are majestic — if you’re a teenager looking for a way around porn filters on your computer. And this isn’t artful porn or something like it, it’s straight-up, hardcore pornography.


Failure Extraordinaire: Microsoft Buys Bingsucks.com



Tony Manco has found out that Microsoft acquired the domain Bingsucks.com. Microsoft is obviously expecting people to express themselves using such domain names.

Tony shows:




whois bingsucks.com || Domain Name: BINGSUCKS.COM Registrar: MARKMONITOR INC. Whois Server: whois.markmonitor.com Referral URL: http://www.markmonitor.com Name Server: NS1.MSFT.NET Name Server: NS2.MSFT.NET Name Server: NS3.MSFT.NET Name Server: NS4.MSFT.NET Name Server: NS5.MSFT.NET



Here are the details for Microsoft's corresponding nameservers:




Administrative Contact: Domain Administrator Microsoft Corporation One Microsoft Way Redmond WA 98052 US domains@microsoft.com +1.4258828080 Fax: +1.4259367329 Technical Contact, Zone Contact: MSN Hostmaster Microsoft Corporation One Microsoft Way Redmond WA 98052 US msnhst@microsoft.com +1.4258828080 Fax: +1.4259367329



Has Microsoft already bought Bingfails.com? How about Bingdiscriminates.com?

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

KillerStartups.com is an LLM Spam Site That Sometimes Covers 'Linux' (Spams the Term)
It only serves to distract from real articles
 
Gemini Links 21/11/2024: Alphabetising 400 Books and Giving the Internet up
Links for the day
Links 21/11/2024: TikTok Fighting Bans, Bluesky Failing Users
Links for the day
Links 21/11/2024: SpaceX Repeatedly Failing (Taxpayers Fund Failure), Russian Disinformation Spreading
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Earned Two More Honorary Doctorates Last Month
Two more doctorate degrees
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, November 20, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, November 20, 2024
Gemini Links 20/11/2024: Game Recommendations, Schizo Language
Links for the day
Growing Older and Signs of the Site's Maturity
The EPO material remains our top priority
Did Microsoft 'Buy' Red Hat Without Paying for It? Does It Tell Canonical What to Do Now?
This is what Linus Torvalds once dubbed a "dick-sucking" competition or contest (alluding to Red Hat's promotion of UEFI 'secure boot')
Links 20/11/2024: Politics, Toolkits, and Gemini Journals
Links for the day
Links 20/11/2024: 'The Open Source Definition' and Further Escalations in Ukraine/Russia Battles
Links for the day
[Meme] Many Old Gemini Capsules Go Offline, But So Do Entire Web Sites
Problems cannot be addressed and resolved if merely talking about these problems isn't allowed
Links 20/11/2024: Standing Desks, Broken Cables, and Journalists Attacked Some More
Links for the day
Links 20/11/2024: Debt Issues and Fentanylware (TikTok) Ban
Links for the day
Jérémy Bobbio (Lunar), Magna Carta and Debian Freedoms: RIP
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Jérémy Bobbio (Lunar) & Debian: from Frans Pop to Euthanasia
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
This Article About "AI-Powered" is Itself LLM-Generated Junk
Trying to meet quotas by making fake 'articles' that are - in effect - based on plagiarism?
Recognizing invalid legal judgments: rogue Debianists sought to deceive one of Europe's most neglected regions, Midlands-North-West
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Google-funded group distributed invalid Swiss judgment to deceive Midlands-North-West
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 20/11/2024: BeagleBone Black and Suicide Rates in Switzerland
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, November 19, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, November 19, 2024
Links 19/11/2024: War on Cables?
Links for the day
Gemini Links 19/11/2024: Private Journals Online and Spirituality
Links for the day
Drew's Development Mailing Lists and Patches to 'Refine' His Attack Pieces Against the FSF's Founder
Way to bury oneself in one's own grave...
The Free Software Foundation is Looking to Raise Nearly Half a Million Dollars by Year's End
And it really needs the money, unlike the EFF which sits on a humongous pile of oligarchs' and GAFAM cash
What IBMers Say About IBM Causing IBMers to Resign (by Making Life Hard/Impossible) and Why Red Hat Was a Waste of Money to Buy
partnering with GAFAM
In Some Countries, Desktop/Laptop Usage Has Fallen to the Point Where Microsoft and Windows (and Intel) Barely Matter Anymore
Microsoft is the next Intel basically
[Meme] The Web Wasn't Always Proprietary Computer Programs Disguised as 'Web Pages'
The Web is getting worse each year
Re-de-centralisation Should Be Our Goal
Put the users in charge, not governments and corporations in charge of users
Gemini Links 19/11/2024: Rain Music, ClockworkPi DevTerm, and More
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, November 18, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, November 18, 2024