Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft's Search Endeavours: Resorting to Bribery, Deception, and Intimidation

Cigarette



Summary: More information about Microsoft's tactics against Google, including some of the least ethical new decisions (mostly input from readers)

EVERYONE knows by now that Microsoft's renamed search engine did not live up to the promise. What Microsoft did with "Bing" is similar to what it did with Vista 7. It's a case of renaming/rebranding/rebadging and marketing that's rather obscene.



Yesterday we wrote about subversive new tactics that won't work and there is more about it in The Register, which labels it "bribery".

Mark Cuban counsels Google-busting bribery



[...]

Broadcast.com co-founder and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban's idea is simplicity itself: Just pay the top 1,000 websites a million bucks per to de-list themselves from Google.


The fact that Microsoft eventually goes in a similar direction (conspiring with newspapers) shows what a bunch of gangster-like minds still run the company. "It seems to be confirmed now that Microsoft is conspiring with publishers to exclude Google," quotes one of our readers, then adding: "Is there a new meme being promoted on the Internet? Dump Google - move to Bing. Who would be behind planting such stories?"

“The fact that Microsoft eventually goes in a similar direction (conspiring with newspapers) shows what a bunch of gangster-like minds still run the company.”Well, we have evidence to show that Microsoft "plants" stories, by its own admission. From Slashdot we have this summary: "Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, has a plan to kill Google by paying the top 1,000 sites a cool million each to leave the Google index and move to Microsoft."

"Yet more 'let's kill Google' stories," shows our reader, but comments are not even allowed in The Register.

Adding to this web of dirty tricks, again we see Microsoft sites using US-only figures to sell people lies and deception and take their eyes off the collective truth.

The October comScore numbers are in and Microsoft has inched upward for another month with its Bing search engine.


comScore is actually a close partner of Microsoft, with whom is shares data, but Mary Jo Foley does not disclose this. Bloggers and reporters who do no work whatsoever actually asking themselves questions and properly investigating are not terribly helpful. We wrote about the subject in:



"How to hack Bing CashBack," shares our reader, who caught up with the news about a flaw we wrote about before. It's another fine example of negligence and improper response [1, 2]. In relation to this same article, here an opinion expressed yesterday:

Subject: Microsoft's typical security quality turns Bing into ka-ching ... From: Richard Rasker <spamtrap@linetec.nl>€ € (Linetec) Date: Tuesday 17 Nov 2009 21:42:06 Groups: comp.os.linux.advocacy

... and results in Microsoft's typical reaction in cases like this: set a pack of lawyers on the person who discovered the loophole:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/nov/11/bing-loophole
"It has spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to take on Google, but€ Microsoft's Bing search engine was facing embarrassment today, after it€ emerged that a security loophole could allow users to skim huge sums of€ money from the system without its knowledge. ... a technical flaw in the system was discovered by US entrepreneur Samir Meghani, the co-founder of price comparison website Bountii, who found that the way Bing cashback works means that a small piece of computer code€ could result in huge sums of money being credited to somebody's account. ... Meghani said that he received a letter from the company's lawyers asking€ him to take down his post on the subject - or face the consequences."
Ah well, that'll teach 'em, trying to bribe people into using their insecure rubbish :-)

Richard Rasker


Nothing that Microsoft tries has actually worked against Google, but it carries on lying, pretending to be optimistic.

Recent Techrights' Posts

New XBox Leaks Probably Serve to Confirm XBox's Collapse (Many More Layoffs)
It's very much consistent with what many other sites have reported lately
 
Slopwatch: Serial Sloppers, Google News Gifting Slopfarms, and Fake News/Plagiarism About "Linux"
Google itself is a slop pusher these days
Qualcomm, the New Owner of Arduino, Blasted for Its Software Patents Tax on 'Smartphones'
A lot of Qualcomm's patents are on software. We wrote about this in prior years.
XBox Layoffs Rumours, Downtime, and Criticism From XBox Co-Founder
"everyone is ditching the xbox."
Links 10/10/2025: Honoring The Legacy Of Robert Murray-Smith, Many Articles on the Hey Hi (AI) Bubble
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: October Gothic and Reading Middle Earth Role Playing; C and Ada
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 09, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 09, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Farewell to Jane Goodall, California Bans Algorithmic Price-Fixing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Lost Wages and a Saga Of Continuing To Use Palm PDAs
Links for the day
Richard Stallman's Talk in Helsinki is Done. Tomorrow Göteborg.
There are scarce details in Finnish about Dr. Stallman's talk
The Slop Song
The train wreck marches on
LLM Slop/Advanced Plagiarism Flooding the Zone With Capital That Does Not Exist
Many publishers out there still participate in this bubble instead of calling it what it is
Links 09/10/2025: Sacked Microsoft Workers Make "Sackbird", IBM Taps CockroachDB for PostgreSQL
Links for the day
"Happy Hacking Day" Richard Stallman Talk This Afternoon (From 14:00 to 16:00) at Haaga-Helia University in Pasila
Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Finland
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 08, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 08, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Impact of Microsoft Layoffs, More Data Breaches
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Autumn Blues and C IRC Bot
Links for the day
Slopwatch Appreciated by Real Authors of GNU/Linux Articles
We do try to keep on top of those things
Upgraded R.R.R.R.R.R. Today
The Web of 2025 is full of garbage, not limited to slopfarms
Freedom From Proprietary Prisons
Forking always an option
IBM's Watson Died in 1956, Now Watson Dies Again
IBM is becoming just a reseller of GAFAM and other stuff
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, and Google News
We've also just noticed more slop from UbuntuPIT
Microsoft Says That Constant Mass Layoffs Are Success, the Media Isn't Buying This Microsoft Narrative Anymore
If people in the media feel an obligation to repeat whatever lies Microsoft tells, what point will there be to the media?
Links 08/10/2025: "Mali Puts Free Speech on Trial" And Apple Enforces Dictatorship
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: ‘Death to Spotify’ and Law to Ban Loud Commercials on Streaming (Dis)Services
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Real Innovation and Nina.chat is Dead
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Y2K38 Bug is a Vulnerability, Chat Control in Europe a Threat
Links for the day
Microsoft Windows is No Longer an Operating System, It's Surveillance Project
Why is this even legal to preload on PCs outside the US?
How and Why Once-Legitimate Sites Turn Into Slopfarms
Many sites will go offline and many social control networks will shut down once they realise or even openly admit they spend money and time gardening a bunch of bots and slop
UbuntuPIT Became a Slopfarm and Gnoppix Tarnishes Its Own Brand With Slop
It fits all the characteristics of mildly-edited (if at all) slop
Slopwatch: Linux Journal and Other Slopfarms
GAFAM needs to go the way of the dodo
Gemini Links 08/10/2025: "Seek Seek Revolution" and Gradient Backgrounds
Links for the day
Qualcomm Arduino Takes Aim at Raspberry Pi
Qualcomm is a Microsoft partner
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 07, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 07, 2025
Stagnation of the Economy and What Free Software Can (or Could) Do For It
If your economic model is based on a pyramid of lies, it won't last very long
Social Control Media is Sinking
it would rightly seem like the era of centralised "social" sites (they're not social, they're about controlling the users) is ending, not overnight but gradually