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Microsoft To Add Ads To Smart Search
Vanderhoth writes "Today, Microsoft said its advertisers will be able to target users not just on Web search results pages but directly inside Windows Smart Search. David Pann, general manager of Microsoft's Search Advertising Group, said in an interview that advertisers don't have to do additional setup to participate. The Smart Search ads will feature a preview of the websites the ad will send people to, as well as click-to-call info and site links, which are additional links under the main result that direct users deeper into a website to the most likely page they might want."
Is Microsoft trying deliberately to lose its customers?
Free Martian Whores!
Any time ads are added to a purchased program or device post-purchase, you can expect a big backlash.
What makes you think that was not the idea all along?
Have you seen Xbox home?
While this seems like a good idea to MS and advertisers, I don't want Bing ads when I'm searching on things inside my machine or to let MS know about the searches I'm doing on my own files. I also can't see that enterprises want this feature turned on. For example if you are working on a proposal to expand your company's presence in a particular Asian country next year but can't find the document that you saved earlier, do you want MS to send information to advertisers about expansion in that country? What if they proposal shouldn't be divulged yet to people inside the company much less to people outside of the company.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Ubuntu did it first.
We visit a Microsoft boardroom, where execs are discussing their future plans
Exec 1: Hey, I've got an idea, you know how on that android-y thingy, you can download free apps but to make their money back on them, the developers serve ads? Why don't we do that?
Exec 2: You mean serve people ads with software they've already paid for???
Exec1: Yeah!
Exec 3: Genius! Let's break for lunch!
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Hey MS. Targeted ads, pot, kettle, black something or other. Sigh.
Silence is a state of mime.
Yeah, that was what prompted me to disconnect mine from the network too, and even though they've backed down and require only one-time, I'm still not buying the new one.
But if Microsoft is going to start doing this stuff in the core OS, they're really going to further piss off their customers. The last thing I want is advertising embedded in the OS -- because you pretty much have to conclude the OS is spying on you.
In doing this, Windows has more or less become something you simply can't trust, because those advertising hooks will pretty much be into everything.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
holy fuck ball-mer is stupid.
THIS is the time to introduce this? right after xbox one constantly on fiasco and the nsa leaks? right now? really? REALLY?
and they're asking money for this? holy bejeezubus even if ubuntu does it that doesn't mean it's a good idea you know. fuck 'em. not going to use it.
how the fuck are they going to justify paying for the os and getting even more ads on your fucking screen? the metro start screen as you get it out of the box is already a giant fucking grid of billboards and nothing else.
(at least probably you can turn it off - and yeah you would pretty much be using the search to run anything if you were to use metro.. quite simply, because it's too bothersome to navigate by mouse)
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
The hell with that crap. If they're going to shove ads right in your face like that, then they should give Windows away for free. If you're paying for the OS then there should NEVER be anything like this. Screw you, Microsoft.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
We know that adware on lowend PCs was worth $75-90 per unit. I'd assume advertising revenue on the OS would be worth at least a little more. OEM windows 8 + Office was $120. Which means its entirely possible the ad revenue might be enough for Microsoft to make Windows 8 + Office (home) a free (as in beer) OS with the advertising. Or maybe even a slight subsidy like $50 for OEMs on systems over $500.
WinRT is much cheaper closer to $30. There we could be looking at something like a $100-150 subsidy which might be almost all the hardware cost. You could be looking at fairly good WinRT systems for $99 or $199.
I have no information but as idle speculation this might be a very very interesting change of strategy for home / small business.
I could understand this if Windows was a free product with an ad-free pro upgrade but for a full product this is inexcusable
Even better, it's a feature that the high-willingness-to-pay corporate market will fucking loath(Oh, sure, we don't mind if our strategy leaks to who-knows-who every time somebody searches for an email...), it's a feature that will just help them look trashy and cheap compared to Apple(who already excels at making their competitors look trashy and cheap), and it is closest to the featureset of a more mature product that Google gives away for free with ads(and Microsoft wants you to pay for).
Should be a big win all around! Then again, though, they've mostly gotten away with it on XBL, so it could be just that bad out there.
In other words, you are still using Windows.
guarantees that Windows 8 / 8.1 will NEVER be utilized inside the medical field. I was already looking to have to explain to my bosses why we should not buy laptops with Windows 8 on them and this just sealed the deal for me -- HIPAA violations start at $50,000 per and go up to $150,000 per. Anything "analyzing" searches on our computer systems or networks is right out.
Thank you, Microsoft, for making my job as an administrator that much easier! It has now become so that recommending Microsoft CAN get you fired.
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
how is having an icons in a folder = advertisement? they aren't even visible. that's not an advertisement, fool.
Learn from them? They seem intent on duplicating them, but with even sloppier implementation. That's where the whole "tablet UI on the desktop" trend of idiocy started, too.
Maybe I'm just coming of "get off my lawn" age, but it's getting rather depressing, just how hard it is to avoid this sort of fuckwittery these days...
I think you nailed it. "Welp, we expected a huge backlash for running ads on our paid service that Sony gives away for free... but somehow we got away with it! Let's do the bait and switch with our desktop market and see how well it works there"
Apparently they didn't consider that what the gaming demographic is willing to put up with, serious businesses might not be. Gamers don't have to worry about HIPAA, PCI, SOX, or other privacy/security requirements.
There's got to be some group policy setting to disable this 'smart search' and its corresponding ads, and have the search tool conduct local searches only. (Group policy editing is available only in Pro, but you can generally get the same results on the Home version by manually setting a corresponding registry key.) Even this management team at Microsoft couldn't be dumb enough to not realize that businesses need an opt-out. Could they?
David Pann, general manager of Microsoft’s Search Advertising Group, said in an interview that advertisers don’t have to do additional setup to participate.
Well whoopee! Thanks David. Considered your next career move yet?
Better jump before your guys get the memo from SB saying that "all your staff are belong to us".
On a more serious note, I've been resisting installing the "update" from Microsoft which wanted to add "Bing search" functionality to my WIndows 7 machine...wonder if this lovely feature will also be thus rolling out to 7 users in the future?
I do own a Nexus 7. I have yet to see any ads on the home screen. Why are you spreading BS?
What no antitrust suggestions? wow Slashdot members are slipping.
Jack of all trades,master of none
The difference between MS and Ubuntu here is that:
1) MS expects me to pay money for a license and then pay again by being subject to ads, and
2) Ubuntu gives me the OS for free, and lets me turn off the ads (or, even better, just install Kubuntu, which doesn't have the ads and works better.)
I also remember the day when you could by a T-shirt and the logo was kept hidden on a tag near the neck. Boy, I am an old-timer!