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Microsoft disguises Bing as Google to fool inattentive searchers

pcworld.com

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Re: Microsoft disguises Bing as Google to fool inattentive searchers

#161

Post by TacticalCoder »

asdasdsddd wrote: post #35

This is only funny because no one takes bing seriously.

> This is only funny because no one takes bing seriously.

But Microsoft is way more dangerous than Google. They've been using all the dirtiest tricks in the books since decades longer than Google. MSFT also has a market cap 30% greater than the one of GOOG.

Microsoft is known in the industry, all around the world, for illegal kickbacks (including to officials).

Google may be bad but Microsoft is just downright an evil company. In addition to that, as the old saying goes, the day Microsoft produces a product that won't suck, it's going to be a vacuum cleaner.

At least Google gave back a lot to open source and contributed a huge lot to Linux and to Linux's success.

I'm not saying Google is clean but they're not anywhere near as dirty as Microsoft.

The whole agenda / narrative that pushed by Microsoft shills atm is also all too obvious "You must break Google". I don't think so. I think it's Microsoft that should be broken up by anti-trust regulations enforcement.

Shittiest company on earth.

Re: Microsoft disguises Bing as Google to fool inattentive searchers

#162

Post by recursive »

miki123211 wrote: post #143
unsignedint wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had my issues with Google ever since they ran a series of ads pretending to be for Blender but actually linking to a scam site. (I’m not sure if it’s gotten better since then.) While I do occasionally come across questionable ads on Bing, they’re definitely much less frequent. For what it’s worth, I’ve switched to using Edge as my browser as well, largely because Google refuses to address one of the most frustra…

If you use a search engine, you need an Ad Blocker. Not because "privacy:", not because "tracking", but because malicious ads exist, and you'll click on one eventually. This is even more true for less technical family members.

You've completely overlooked the possibility of a search engine without ads. That's what I use.

Re: Microsoft disguises Bing as Google to fool inattentive searchers

#163

Post by jjcm »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #130
jjcm wrote: post #82

Disclaimer - I used to work on Bing like... 8 years ago. There's probably some debate around whether this is nefarious or genius, but I'd lead towards the later. "google" has always been one of the number one search terms, and the amount of people who would open chrome, search for google in the address bar, then open google in the google search results, then do their search, was wild. There's a very large percentage…

Disclamer - I owned a restaurant that gave Pepsi products to customers who explicitly ask for a Coke. There's probably some debate about whether this is nefarious or genius, but I lean towards the later. "Coke" has always been the number one request from our patrons, and the amount of people who just wanted any soda but said "coke" was wild. there's a very large percentage of poorly palated patrons who aren't looking…

I definitely get what you're saying - there's an element here of taking what a customer asks for and returning something different, but I think it's an imperfect analogy.

It's not bringing them a Coke, it's bringing them a dispenser that says "Cola" next to a fridge with options. For people who just want Cola, it's immediately available. For those with a brand choice, there are additional options.

The reality I'm trying to portray though is that the demographic of people who search "Google" in a search field rarely overlaps with the demographic of people who are opinionated about their search tool, so this ends up serving a segment of the population in the way they expected.

Re: Microsoft disguises Bing as Google to fool inattentive searchers

#164

Post by m3kw9 »

jjcm wrote: post #163
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclamer - I owned a restaurant that gave Pepsi products to customers who explicitly ask for a Coke. There's probably some debate about whether this is nefarious or genius, but I lean towards the later. "Coke" has always been the number one request from our patrons, and the amount of people who just wanted any soda but said "coke" was wild. there's a very large percentage of poorly palated patrons who aren't looking…

I definitely get what you're saying - there's an element here of taking what a customer asks for and returning something different, but I think it's an imperfect analogy. It's not bringing them a Coke, it's bringing them a dispenser that says "Cola" next to a fridge with options. For people who just want Cola, it's immediately available. For those with a brand choice, there are additional options. The reality I'm try…

It’s a cheap trick from some 20 year old fresh out of college. It works though but it makes Microsoft look soft and somehow non professional. But still good for them if they get to convert a few users

Re: Microsoft disguises Bing as Google to fool inattentive searchers

#165

Post by amyames »

zb3 wrote: post #46
ballenf wrote: post #8

I bet this is 100x+ more effective at keeping people on Bing than anything else MS has tried. Same idea as knock-off brands with labels and designs inspired by the name brand. People may eventually realize they're not on Google, but probably only after being not displeased in Bing's results. If they have a bad experience, oh well, they were planning on using google anyway.

Nothing can keep me on Bing unless the results improve. Or am I the only one who regularily gives Bing a try only to find out the results are irrelevant?

It just seems I’m doing the google -> bing -> yandex thing a lot now.

And then I don’t bother with many competitors because they’re all bing based anyway.

Way down the list sometimes I resort to Brave search. Not because it’s good. But in fact, because it’s so bad, it might be indexing something the others tried getting rid of for a good year or two after everyone else tried to memory hole it.

Which has helped me pull cached versions of something interesting “to me” that wasn’t interesting enough for someone else to have gotten with archive.today

Think the most recent one I went down the whole rabbit hole on was a tv show called “that’s my bush” from Comedy Central. I was willing to buy them but they were Unobtainium. I did end up finding the episodes on archive.org and on torrents, via yandex. Great example of something harmless and hilarious that Big Social and Big Search just HAS to protect my delicate sensibilities and my fragile mind from.

Just to underscore how stupid and petty some of this stuff has gotten. Even if it’s not outright censorship of (at best) tangentially “political” content (they had planned on lampooning whoever won, thinking Al Gore was going to be president, and it’s the same guys who did South Park so it’s culturally and historically interesting to some of us) it proves how increasingly irrelevant Google has become.

Google and Bing both hid their availability on archive.org from me and I would not have thought to look there. Meanwhile, first hit on Yandex.

Re: Microsoft disguises Bing as Google to fool inattentive searchers

#166

Post by jhanschoo »

pornel wrote: post #145
jhanschoo wrote: post #110

If MS hasn't changed the result in the meantime, the screenshot in the article is slightly dishonest by omission. The journalist has manipulated the browser window's size and scrolled down a bit so that only the "promoted result" is visible and without any indication. The journalist's characterization > Before you scroll down to the actual search results, you’re presented with an all-white page with a centered, unbra…

I've tried myself (in Firefox on macOS even), and Bing really scrolled down automatically to hide its logo from the top of the page.

> Note nevertheless that the journalist has also failed to point out a particular interaction that would support their thesis. For searches that trigger this "promotion", the window immediately scrolls the page so that the promotion is aligned to the top of the viewport, and the search bar in the promotion is focused. (The "Promoted by Microsoft" is visible without scrolling at any size.)

That's what I said. This is still in contradiction with the screenshot, which I described as:

> The journalist has manipulated the browser window's size and scrolled down a bit so that only the "promoted result" is visible and without any indication.

where the "Promoted by Microsoft" is NOT visible. I find that dishonest.

Re: Microsoft disguises Bing as Google to fool inattentive searchers

#167

Post by Krssst »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #161
asdasdsddd wrote: post #35

This is only funny because no one takes bing seriously.

> This is only funny because no one takes bing seriously. But Microsoft is way more dangerous than Google. They've been using all the dirtiest tricks in the books since decades longer than Google. MSFT also has a market cap 30% greater than the one of GOOG. Microsoft is known in the industry, all around the world, for illegal kickbacks (including to officials). Google may be bad but Microsoft is just downright an evi…

Also, not using Android or Chrome is very feasible for almost everyone (thanks to iOS and Firefox/Chromium). Not using Windows is almost impossible for a large array of use cases and professions.

Re: Microsoft disguises Bing as Google to fool inattentive searchers

#168

Post by zb3 »

notahacker wrote: post #127
zb3 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing can keep me on Bing unless the results improve. Or am I the only one who regularily gives Bing a try only to find out the results are irrelevant?

Honestly, I'm under the impression they've converged so much recently I can't be bothered to switch on my work machine, and I don't think this is because Bing is getting better. I think there are a few areas where Google still has an advantage (if I search with a city name, Google will match results to the city my IP address is located on and not a smaller, less significant one in the United States) but I think their…

Perhaps something like LMArena but for search engines could help them understand what underperforms.. is there a tool where i could see results side by side? I never thought about that..

Re: Microsoft disguises Bing as Google to fool inattentive searchers

#169

Post by [deleted] »

VyseofArcadia wrote: post #22

Never quite understood the hate for Bing. I despise Microsoft, but Bing is fine. It's one of the least shit Microsoft products there is. It definitely wasn't competitive on release, but it's fine now. To be fair I think this is a function of both Bing having gotten better and Google having gotten worse.

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft disguises Bing as Google to fool inattentive searchers

#170

Post by scotty79 »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #130
jjcm wrote: post #82

Disclaimer - I used to work on Bing like... 8 years ago. There's probably some debate around whether this is nefarious or genius, but I'd lead towards the later. "google" has always been one of the number one search terms, and the amount of people who would open chrome, search for google in the address bar, then open google in the google search results, then do their search, was wild. There's a very large percentage…

Disclamer - I owned a restaurant that gave Pepsi products to customers who explicitly ask for a Coke. There's probably some debate about whether this is nefarious or genius, but I lean towards the later. "Coke" has always been the number one request from our patrons, and the amount of people who just wanted any soda but said "coke" was wild. there's a very large percentage of poorly palated patrons who aren't looking…

I don't see anything wrong with that. Coke is pretty much generic term. And Pepsi and Coke and other brands of cola flavored sweetened water are all pretty much the same.

People shouldn't be drinking this stuff at all anyways. It should be mandatorily white labeled anyways.

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