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Search Engines' Reward Programs

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the this-is-all-so-dot-com dept.

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Search engines are dangling rewards and cash prizes to attract customers to their sites, the Wall Street Journal reports. MSN is offering free nights at the Four Seasons and other goodies to people who search for one of roughly a thousand terms on a rotating list. Yahoo's GoodSearch donates a penny to charity for each search. And Blingo hawks giveaways including iPods. But, the WSJ reports, 'There are strings attached to some of the reward programs. Some require users to register personal information like a name or email.'"

3 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. hacked by zxnos · · Score: 4, Interesting

    already hacked.

    --
    always mosh clockwise
  2. interesting, but don't lump Google into this mix by yagu · · Score: 4, Interesting

    MSN is doing it (offering free nights at the Four Seasons); Yahoo's "GoodSearch" is doing it (but nicely -- donating pennies to charity); but Google is not doing it, but Blingo is.

    If you look at the Blingo "about us" page, at the bottom you'll find:

    Who is Blingo?

    We're a privately-held company in California, managed by a small team of successful entrepreneurs.

    Just wanted to set the record straight, since I still kind of believe Google means it when they say "do no evil".

  3. Let's try something different... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why don't you pay me to use your search engine instead? That's a fair trade. :P