Bing Cashback Can Cost You Money

paltemalte writes "Microsoft and various retailers have teamed up to bring you cashback on purchases made via Bing's price comparison feature. There is a little snag, though — it seems that when you have a Bing cookie living in your browser, some retailers will quote you a higher price than if you come with no Bing cookie in your system."

Comments

"Is this legal" is the wrong question

[Shadow of Eternity]

The right one is "Will people finding out cost more than lawsuits if it isn't legal". If the answer is yes, don't do it, if no then go on ahead.

Re:"Is this legal" is the wrong question

[TubeSteak]

The right one is "Will people finding out cost more than lawsuits if it isn't legal". If the answer is yes, don't do it, if no then go on ahead.

Since when is simple price discrimination illegal?
It isn't like the website is charging you more based on any legally recognized actionable causes.

Re:"Is this legal" is the wrong question

[mysidia]

Well, what's illegal is deceptive business practices.

They claim to be offering a cash back if you utilize Bing, which implies a discount, where in fact, they are charging a higher price upfront to Bing users and creating a deceptive impression that the cash back is providing a discount of their normal price.

Instead of complaining, game the system.

[ZackSchil]

Find out what sites go higher and what sites go lower in quoted prices. Fake a cookie to maximize savings or delete it altogether if it gets you a uniformly higher price.

That's the behavior I'd expect from /. . None of this Newsweek / Dateline NBC alarmist "They're using COMPUTER MACHINES to scam us!!!" Get on it, people.

Re:Instead of complaining, game the system.

[unix1]

There! He knows that clearing his cookies solves the problem. Why all this bullshit about being tainted for three months and being afraid to use their service to write a bloody blog post? Does he think the "oh noes teh bing cookeez" are going to trash his blog and kill his hamster too?

He knows, but most people have no idea what cookies are, much less how to "clear" them. So, after reading the article, now you know how most people are getting screwed by some vendors claiming they are getting the customers a discount going through Bing when in fact it could be costing them money.

Also, now that you know, and if you would consider getting Bing cashback at some point in the future, you'd be likely to check if the vendor was charging you more just because you arrived from Bing.

Does everything have to be spelled out for you?

Come on, it's obviously the store that's shady

[Edgewize]

This has nothing to do with Microsoft. From the article: Butterfly Photo set a three month cookie on my computer to indicate that I came from Bing.

So, a disreputable web site is setting a cookie when you click on a sales link. How is this Microsoft's fault again? What does this have to do with Bing?

A/V and photography stores are notorious for ripping off customers, both in-store and on-line. Surprise surprise, you can find these disreputable sites using search engines. Trying to blame this on Bing is like trying to blame your phone book for recommending a sketchy car mechanic.

Re:The first thing that came to mind...

[jesseck]

I worked for a national healthcare system which offered a Dell employee purchase program. My wife wanted a pink laptop, and I quickly found out I could get a better deal on a regular "sale" from Dell than the "12% employee purchase program discount" could ever give me. They're scams, which attempt to con people into thinking they are getting a deal.

Re:Doesn't work for me

[silencrasdf]

Same here, I get the lower price with or without cookies. Seeing as the article was written by a Bing competitor it's a way for them to get exposure.

* Step 1: Write article saying M$ is evil
* Step 2: Submit story to /.
* Step 3: Profit!

Doesn't matter if it's true or not

Re:Hehe

[pegdhcp]

It is slightly more userfriendlier(ish) than Google. And more importantly, MS pushing it as the default search engine in recent incarnations of IE, thus (l)users might start to think Bing=search engine, like they do in IE=Internet equation (Postel is turning in his grave). But the answer to your main question is "No it is not useful". Also I might add that, I would prefer Google to have my search patterns stored. At least they (seemingly) are not going to need to sell their shares to MS, with the current financial position.

Re:It is?

[93 Escort Wagon]

After the search is where it gets better. The results pages on Bing are way better, and have even caused a stir at Google.

In what way? During the brief period I tried Bing, I was thoroughly unimpressed.

Giving me relevant results is the ONLY thing I care about with a search engine. Bing didn't do as well as Google - end of story. If it had done as well as Google, I still wouldn't have cared - it'd have to provide better results for me to even care.

Re:It is?

[bickerdyke]

Rule of thumb:

All great things are simple, but not every simple thing is great.

Re:Hehe

[Hyppy]

The difference is that Google's market share (~65%) has been earned through having a superior product, where most of Bing's current market share (~10%) can be easily attributed to the search engine being forced on unsuspecting IE users.