Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft Can't Afford to Buy Search Market Share Anymore, Kills What's Left of Yahoo!

Dollar sign



Summary: An increasingly-feeble yet ruthless Microsoft keeps distorting the search market and removing options from this market

LAST WEEK we learned that AOL escaped Microsoft following its pursuits [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. AOL stayed with Google instead. We have explained why Google's monoculture in search is probably better than Microsoft propaganda and in the next post we will show that Microsoft tries to reverse truths and claim that Google, not Microsoft, is censoring/adding bias to the results which appear in pages.

One of Microsoft's boosters, Mr. Bishop, says that Microsoft lost in a bidding process wherein it could not outspend Google or afford to buy a contract (Microsoft has debt). AOL's story is a tad different because it claims that familiarity or expectation is why Google was chosen over Microsoft's Bong [sic] 'search'. Maybe they learned a lesson from that Verizon deal (now confirmed, even the numbers that were once rumoured), which forced all customers to use the Bong [1, 2]. Microsoft is running low(er) on cash and it shows:

A Change In Approach? Microsoft Chooses Not To Buy Search Share



[...]

That’s a change from how Microsoft has acted in the past when it is competing with Google for search advertising deals; a year-and-a-half ago, for instance, the company outbid Google, offering more than $500 million—twice what Google was willing to pay—to become the default search engine on Verizon phones. It has spent millions too to get its search bar pre-installed on Dell, HP (NYSE: HPQ) and Lenovo PCs.


That seems like a worthwhile investment for Microsoft. They are pushing self-serving propaganda in 'search' results. One need only search for "Linux" or "Ubuntu" to see how it's done. The Bong [sic] homepage is now being used to wage war on rival Web browsers [1, 2]. "Microsoft Uses Bing Home Page to Push IE8" says the former headline. "Microsoft Corporation Pushing Users" says an article from the financial press:

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has found a stick-and-carrot way to get people using its Bing search engine.


The Microsoft boosterama (Motley Fool) in the financial press is bemoaning this and another site says: "Microsoft has updated Bing for Windows Mobile, in a way that many Windows Phone owners won’t be happy about.

“Microsoft has updated Bing for Windows Mobile, in a way that many Windows Phone owners won’t be happy about.”
      --PhoneNews.com
"The latest version of Bing for Windows Mobile prohibits devices with QVGA or lower resolution screens… even for users that already have the application installed. Previously devices below QVGA (320×240 pixels) were permitted to install in an “unsupported” mode. This new change not only removes unsupported mode, but also blocks QVGA devices as well. QVGA was the resolution that Microsoft suggested for devices for nearly a decade."

Microsoft has had a fallback to exploit and it's called Yahoo!

Yahoo is being hurt by Microsoft and it carries on losing ground.

NHN is the second major Asian internet company to break up with Yahoo, which is in the process of outsourcing its own search technology to Microsoft’s Bing.


NHN is in OIN. Here's more from the same story:

Yahoo's biggest search affiliate, Korea's NHN, is taking search in house.


The Yahoo! hijack took about 2 agonising years and its history is already being forgotten or distorted. The Seattle Times with AP offers just a watered-down version which excludes an attack on the company's management and ousting of people. It's an oversimplification that trivialises/omits Microsoft abuse.

Microsoft is now taking control of Yahoo's advertising business, not just search [1, 2] (ad integration too means more spying by Microsoft). How long before Yahoo! is formally just an extended department or subsidiary of Microsoft then? That has been a case of sheer abuse. It has not been beneficial to Yahoo (not as much as joining the winning team which even Microsoft Nick can recognise, but Microsoft hired AstroTurfers to prevent it):

A delay in shifting control of Yahoo Inc.'s (YHOO) paid Internet search results to Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) as part of the companies' partnership until after the holidays could be a financial positive for Yahoo, according to a research report published Monday.


Google still emerges as victorious, but the sad thing is that Microsoft successfully killed the #2 player, which was Yahoo!

Microsoft is good at annihilating stuff, not creating anything of value. That's why the industry generally distrusts Microsoft.

Comments

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
 
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