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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
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~
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?