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Bing Search Tainted By Pro-Microsoft Results

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the first-be-evil dept.

bdcny7927 writes "Just as Bing is gaining popularity, some disturbingly pro-Microsoft and anti-Apple search results are rearing their ugly heads. Case in point: a search on Bing for the phrase, 'Why is Windows so expensive?' returned this as the top link: 'Why are Macs so expensive.' That's right. You're not hallucinating."

18 of 582 comments (clear)

  1. And? by Gandalf_Greyhame · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Surprised, why?

    --
    I am not stubborn. I am right!
    1. Re:And? by Eevee · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The surprise isn't that Microsoft is doing it, but rather that cio.com is the one calling them on it--a site aimed at upper management. This isn't fanboy-complaining, but business-complaining, something that will hit acceptance of Bing in the corporate environment.

    2. Re:And? by afidel · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Advertising and skewing search results are two VERY different things. Altering search results to your corporate whims makes your search engine useless IMHO, and the opinions of a lot of other people. That's what made Google so popular initially, their blind algorithm gave the 'best' results regardless of source or view.

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    3. Re:And? by noundi · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Does Google advertise Internet Explorer on Youtube?

      Either you're horribly offtopic or you're trying to imply that MS has a right to secretly manipulate search results in their favor (and not in the users favor such as e.g. prioritizing results from the country of which the user resides, google.es provides more spanish results and google.se provides more swedish results). If the latter then your question is irrelevant since this is not about advertisement at all. So either way you fail horribly.

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    4. Re:And? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Does Google advertise Internet Explorer on Youtube?

      Advertising is different -- in advertising, there is no implied agreement that the text should be objective and informative. Advertisements do not pose as something, er, academic, and are often headed by a text declaring ADVERTISEMENT.

      A search engine, on the other hand, is expected (implicitly trusted) to be fair (re: Google China and other censorship cases). As such, in advertising Chrome, Google doesn't break an implied agreement between parties, the way Bing does. Microsoft's engine is not legally suspect, certainly, but it's also not playing it all out honest.

    5. Re:And? by cabjf · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It never seems to occur to them that people might be genuinely interested in results that reflect what they actually want.

      Sounds like the work of a bad programmer. Who else would take a question from a user and assume they know what the user really wants?

    6. Re:And? by NickFortune · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That, I hadn't picked up on. Perhaps we should have asked on whose behalf the engine was making those decisions.

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    7. Re:And? by Fujisawa+Sensei · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Surprised, why?

      Surprised it took them this long, perhaps.

      Microsoft always do this with search engines. They seem to start from the assumption that any query represents a user problem, for which there exists a Microsoft based solution. Looked at that way, a search engine becomes an exercise in derailing the users interest, and redirecting into more profitable channels.

      There is a Microsoft based solution; it just usually involves uninstalling all their products.

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    8. Re:And? by awrz · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What's even more amusing is the first result:

      Why are Mac's So Expensive? - Yahoo! Answers

      I could care less about whether or not macs are more expensive, or about commercial OSS prices.

      I just want accurate results from a search engine.

      --
      "--wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy." --Benjamin Franklin
    9. Re:And? by bsDaemon · · Score: 3, Insightful

      But it's not a search engine, it's a decision engine.. is it any surprise what they've decided?

    10. Re:And? by AndrewNeo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But it's not a search engine, it's a decision engine! It's obviously deciding that Macs and Linux are more expensive than Windows, and tuning the results appropriately!

  2. That's why.... by david_thornley · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's why I have often taken my car to repair shops that are nothing but repair shops, not gas stations or tire stores or whatever doing car repair on the side. They have to live on the basis of their car repairs, and they are likely to pay attention to that, and if they do bad repairs they will go out of business.

    Similarly, Google lives by its search engine, and people at Google know it. There is nothing more important to Google than returning good search results, and if somebody else starts returning better ones Google is in deep trouble.

    It won't take much for me to conclude that a search engine operated by somebody like Microsoft or Apple is biased. A biased search engine isn't going to get me the results I want (unless, I guess, I agree with the bias, but in that case I run the risk of learning nothing and simply being confirmed in my ignorance). If Microsoft wants me to use Bing, they're going to have to be extra careful to avoid the appearance of bias.

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    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  3. Re:Not on my bing by langelgjm · · Score: 4, Insightful

    But that would be because you put it in quotes? And the guy writing the article didn't.

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    "Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
  4. Is Bing some kind of other Google? by Gothmolly · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why would I use another search engine when I can use Google?

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  5. Re:yeah, but.... by caerwyn · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes. One out of the rest of the front page.

    Bing has one *real* result out of the rest of the front page, which is a bit of a difference...

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  6. Re:yeah, but.... by schon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Try these queries on Google:

    "why does chrome suck"

    "why does google suck"

    "why does android suck"

    Not one mention of Microsoft or Apple. You get what you asked for.

  7. Re:So what, it's MS's service... by xtracto · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It is worth trying it for yourself:

    http://www.cuil.com/search?q=Why+is+Windows+so+expensive%3F

    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Why+is+Windows+so+expensive%3F

    http://www.bing.com/search?q=Why+is+Windows+so+expensive%3F

    http://us.ask.com/web?q=Why+is+Windows+so+expensive%3F

    http://www.cuil.com/search?q=Why+is+Windows+so+expensive%3F

    http://www.altavista.com/web/results?itag=ody&q=Why+is+Windows+so+expensive%3F&kgs=1&kls=0

    I guess there is no conspiracy at all, just different weights in the ordering algorithm... but hey, it is a cool experiment... unless maybe they are also colluding with CocaCola

    http://www.altavista.com/web/results?itag=ody&q=why+does+pepsi+sucks%3F&kgs=1&kls=0
    http://www.bing.com/search?q=why+does+pepsi+sucks%3F&go=&form=QBLH&qs=n

    http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=why+does+pepsi+sucks%3F&aq=f&oq=&aqi=&fp=CSrKZrhT3_U

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  8. Re:Troll by RenHoek · · Score: 4, Insightful

    TFA states that they stopped doing it. He screencapped his results, but it's not surprising that you don't see it now.

    At least.. for now.. with those search queries..

    But can you trust them to give honest results later on when the heat is off again?