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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

#171

Post by tedunangst »

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 have no idea why there's a process server outside, but rest easy, it's nothing to do with serving Pepsi.

Re: Microsoft disguises Bing as Google to fool inattentive searchers

#172

Post by noman-land »

nine_k wrote: post #102

— Hey, waiter! That cup that you've brought me, is it tea or coffee? — Sorry, sir, you mean you cannot tell by the taste? — I can't. — Then what difference does it make?

It makes a difference because if I drink coffee I'll die. Since you know nothing about me, how about you let me decide what I want and why.

Re: Microsoft disguises Bing as Google to fool inattentive searchers

#173

Post by thaumasiotes »

norman784 wrote: post #89
garciasn wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Far less than the time saved had they received Google's results instead of Bing's inferior ones.

Are Google results good? I stop using Google years ago because of the garbage results (a lot of spam sites that were just serving data crawled from Github and other sites).

See Dan Luu, "How Bad Are Search Results?"

https://danluu.com/seo-spam/

Re: Microsoft disguises Bing as Google to fool inattentive searchers

#174

Post by thaumasiotes »

foobiekr wrote: post #75
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.

Honestly whatever the hell Google offers at this point has been disguising itself as google search for years. It sure as shit is not what people expect from google.

I had similar thoughts; my gut says that this is bad behavior by Microsoft, but that what Google has done to their own supposed product is bad enough to justify it.

Re: Microsoft disguises Bing as Google to fool inattentive searchers

#176

Post by stemlord »

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.

Bing is a lot better than google for adult content. Bing actually has pretty neat image search tools

Re: Microsoft disguises Bing as Google to fool inattentive searchers

#178

Post by nneonneo »

I used Bing on mobile for a while, and I quickly noticed a horrible dark pattern: the mobile website has a little banner that pops up at the top prompting you to download their app, but this banner only loads in after a short delay (maybe half a second) after the rest of the page. In particular, it shows up right where the search bar was (pushing the bar downwards) - meaning that if I aim for the search bar right when the page loads, I often end up hitting the banner ad right as it loads in. I’ve probably loaded their App Store page a dozen times at this point by accident - it’s that annoying.

I swear this is deliberate. There’s not really any good reason for a delay on the “you should get our app” banner that I can see, and even less of a good reason to have it load at the exact position of the search bar. Some engineer in Redmond is probably feeling really good about tricking people this way…

Re: Microsoft disguises Bing as Google to fool inattentive searchers

#179

Post by mrayycombi »

comex wrote: post #91
londons_explore wrote: post #61

This is partly preying on the fact googles 'doodles' weaken their brand/trademark. Back when every google doodle clearly had the word "Google" in, that was okay. But often now, the doodles are just some random picture. At that point, there is no brand recognition to their homepage beyond a blank white background and centered search box, which microsoft has copied here because those elements alone are not enough to fo…

I agree, but for the record, if Google wanted to sue, they wouldn’t be completely out of luck. They could make claims under the Lanham Act §1125(a), state unfair competition laws, or other fraud-adjacent laws. But they would have to prove that Microsoft was deceiving customers, and it would be a lot harder without an actual case of trademark infringement. They could also try to claim trademark infringement based on t…

Microsoft has been breaking the law for years and was found guilty of antitrust violations, among others.

Bill Gates, the friendly philanthropist, was/is a business criminal. His company hasn't changed.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/microsoft-agrees-pay-20-milli...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_C....

They waged a war of "FUD" against open-source software.

https://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/57261/index.html

And so on.

And Google is hardly a saint either. "Do no evil" was just marketing from that surveillance advertising firm.

Re: Microsoft disguises Bing as Google to fool inattentive searchers

#180

Post by netsharc »

quink wrote: post #88
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…

> They likely don't care what search engine they're using That's nothing, for our next iteration our navigation system will take you to the nearest Woolworths because they've got a commercial partnership with us even though the customer quite clearly said 'Coles'. It's likely they don't care.

Huh, imagine if current operating system trends are applied to car computers. "To store your seat settings across reboots, get our Comfort subscription. [Subscribe] [Not Now]".

In fact, how shitty have OSes become that they are nagware now?

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