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Bing Search Tainted By Pro-Microsoft Results
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."
Surprised, why?
I am not stubborn. I am right!
...are you really surprised?
THL phish sticks
Like gold, the price of brushed aluminium is at an all-time high.
bomb the us up set someone
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.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
But that would be because you put it in quotes? And the guy writing the article didn't.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Yes, the mac link appears under the google results. However, the other top google results are all about the Windows OS. The bing results has NO results about Windows OS on the first page.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
Hey Slashdot, how about covering the fact that KDE 4.3 [kde.org] was just released today?
Ops.
Any life is made up of a single moment, the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.
Except that putting that same query to Google will give this result in the first page:
http://www.techradar.com/news/computing/apple/why-are-macs-so-expensive--609128
Actually, yes. On the main page, click the minus sign next to the title. You can then pick why you don't like it.
Theoretically if enough people do it, we could kick it back off the front page. That seems unlikely in this case though.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Maybe he's requesting a dupe?
'This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it' - Eeyore
You've been marked "informative" but I think the phrase "can't read" is more appropriate. If you Read The Frakking Article, it states that Bing is now returning non-biased results, due to their old biased system being exposed publicly.
Apparently Microsoft programmers did some quick cover-up, like a bunch of 1940s-era Germans digging-up bodies and burning them to hide the evidence. Microsoft was exposed by the media, and now MS is trying to pretend it never happened.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
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?
Change the search to, "Why is your mom so expensive?" and the first result is "Why Are Bulldog Puppies So Expensive" but somehow I doubt that Microsoft is "pro-your mom" and "anti-bulldog" puppies.