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MSN Takes on Google AdWords
kevmo writes "CNET News.com reports that Microsoft's MSN unit launched its own paid-search advertising program in France and said it plans to begin testing the system in the United States next month. FTA: "The system competes with Google's AdWords program and will eventually replace a keyword-based advertising program MSN contracts out to Yahoo. It has a simple user interface and is notable for its use of customer profiling, taking advantage of the data MSN gathers from its more than 9 million subscribers.""
Not to try to inflame any French /.tter, and I don't know much about the French, but wouldn't there be a significant difference between how the French or Americans surf? Like the kinds of stuff they look for, etc.
Just wondering why MS would test-run in France instead of some fixed part of the US.
I wonder if better ad-targeting will mean higher pay-per-click for the publishers? Not that anyone will dare discuss their Adsense earnings, for fear of having their account cancelled.
Despite my normal anti-Microsoft stance on the world in general, this type of information usage is going to happen no matter what we as users want. The worst case is the governments of the world using personally identifying information in similar kinds of ways.
:)
Since I don't think it can be stopped any easier than spam-email can be stopped altogether, I want to make my online profile seem as non-descript as possible. That is to say that I don't want to be part of a 'demographic'. That probably means I'll get lumped in with people that buy things I don't want or am allergic to. This is all the more reason to not use MSN... to avoid becoming a user in a demographic. We don't allow the government to use racial profiling... this is just cyber profiling in my opinion, and far worse that standard advertisement campaigns.
Of course the French will have differing demographic and cyber values than people in North America... we won't be looking to buy white flags
Despite the jokes, does anyone know of software or companies that specifically work to help a user maintain anonymity in the face of this type of information usage?
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The thing I fear most about google is that it may dominate the online services world and gain a monopoly position. Which is why most people fear it becoming like microsoft (as far as I've seen).
The reason for this fear is two-fold, but both reasons stem from resources.
In my opinion, a company is too powerful when we have the hypothetical situation that if their "IP" and/or physical assets are taken away, but not the talents of their staff, that they could not hope to compete with their previous work.
Or to state it simpler, when the hardware/software + "IP-rights" are greater than the employees.
A good example of this would be when Steve Jobs created Next with some of the best people from Apple. Another would be to imagine microsoft without the rights to the office formats or windows APIs.
In the case of Google I see two things that would/will qualify them in this category.
1) Hardware, the hardware to run a search engine is quite expensive.
2) Ad revenue connections, imagine getting your foot in the door if you are competing against Google.
The question that I pose now is, "Can an open source project, resembling google, have a chance against google?" As long as the answer to that is yes, I have no problem with them. But it is my fear that in the future, the answer will be no. (I feel that google can still be wiped off the 'net)
Maybe the creation of a "Free Services Foundation" may be required, assuming one does not already exist. Where hardware and bandwidth is provided (I suppose sourceforge would be a good example, but it is only a start)
Am I open minded towards open source, or closed minded towards closed source?
the victims are the advertisers and Microsoft in this situation would actually be making more money. if they do catch you, MS still has nothing to lose besides helping advertisers gain confidence in MSN click fraud detection.
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