Microsoft Bing

Summary

Microsoft Bing, commonly referred to as Bing, is a search engine owned and operated by Microsoft. The service traces its roots back to Microsoft's earlier search engines, including MSN Search, Windows Live Search, and Live Search. Bing offers a broad spectrum of search services, encompassing web, video, image, and map search products, all developed using ASP.NET.

Microsoft Bing

Main logo and wordmark since October 2020
Screenshot
The Bing homepage
Type of site
Search engine
Available in40 languages
OwnerMicrosoft
Created byMicrosoft
RevenueMicrosoft Advertising
URLbing.com
CommercialYes
RegistrationOptional (Microsoft account)
LaunchedJune 3, 2009; 14 years ago (2009-06-03)
Current statusActive
Written inASP.NET[1]

The transition from Live Search to Bing was announced by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on May 28, 2009, at the All Things Digital conference in San Diego, California. The official release followed on June 3, 2009. Bing introduced several notable features at its inception, such as search suggestions during query input and a list of related searches, known as the 'Explore pane'. These features leveraged semantic technology from Powerset, a company Microsoft acquired in 2008. Microsoft also struck a deal with Yahoo! that led to Bing powering Yahoo! Search.

Microsoft made significant strides towards open-source technology in 2016, making the BitFunnel search engine indexing algorithm and various components of Bing open source. In February 2023, Microsoft launched Bing Chat (later renamed Microsoft Copilot), an artificial intelligence chatbot experience based on GPT-4, integrated directly into the search engine. This was well-received, with Bing reaching 100 million active users by the following month.

As of 2023, Bing holds the position of the second-largest search engine worldwide, commanding a query volume of 12%, trailing Google's 79%. Other competitors include Baidu with 5% and Yahoo! Search, which is largely powered by Bing, with 2%.

History edit

Background (1998–2009) edit

MSN Search edit

 
MSN Search homepage in 2002
 
MSN Search homepage in 2006

Microsoft launched MSN Search in the third quarter of 1998, using search results from Inktomi. It consisted of a search engine, index, and web crawler. In early 1999, MSN Search launched a version which displayed listings from Looksmart blended with results from Inktomi except for a short time in 1999 when results from AltaVista were used instead. Microsoft decided to make a large investment in web search by building its own web crawler for MSN Search, the index of which was updated weekly and sometimes daily. The upgrade started as a beta program in November 2004, and came out of beta in February 2005.[2] This occurred a year after rival Yahoo! Search rolled out its own crawler. Image search was powered by a third party, Picsearch. The service also started providing its search results to other search engine portals in an effort to better compete in the market.

Windows Live Search edit

 
Windows Live Search homepage

The first public beta of Windows Live Search was unveiled on March 8, 2006, with the final release on September 11, 2006 replacing MSN Search. The new search engine used search tabs that include Web, news, images, music, desktop, local, and Microsoft Encarta.

In the roll-over from MSN Search to Windows Live Search, Microsoft stopped using Picsearch as their image search provider and started performing their own image search, fueled by their own internal image search algorithms.[3]

Live Search edit

 
Live Search homepage, which would help to create the Bing homepage later on

On March 21, 2007, Microsoft announced that it would separate its search developments from the Windows Live services family, rebranding the service as Live Search. Live Search was integrated into the Live Search and Ad Platform headed by Satya Nadella, part of Microsoft's Platform and Systems division. As part of this change, Live Search was merged with Microsoft adCenter.[4]

A series of reorganizations and consolidations of Microsoft's search offerings were made under the Live Search branding. On May 23, 2008, Microsoft discontinued Live Search Books and Live Search Academic and integrated all academic and book search results into regular search. This also included the closure of the Live Search Books Publisher Program. Windows Live Expo was discontinued on July 31, 2008. Live Search Macros, a service for users to create their own custom search engines or use macros created by other users, was also discontinued. On May 15, 2009, Live Product Upload, a service which allowed merchants to upload products information onto Live Search Products, was discontinued. The final reorganization came as Live Search QnA was rebranded MSN QnA on February 18, 2009, then discontinued on May 21, 2009.[5]

Beginnings (2009) edit

Rebrand as Bing edit

 
First Bing logo, used until September 2013
 
Second Bing logo, used from 2013 until 2016
 
Third Bing logo, used from 2016 until 2020
 
Fourth Fluent Bing logo, used since 2020

Microsoft recognized that there would be a problem with branding as long as the word "Live" remained in the name.[6] As an effort to create a new identity for Microsoft's search services, Live Search was officially replaced by Bing on June 3, 2009.[7]

The Bing name was chosen through focus groups, and Microsoft decided that the name was memorable, short, and easy to spell, and that it would function well as a URL around the world. The word would remind people of the sound made during "the moment of discovery and decision making".[8] Microsoft was assisted by branding consultancy Interbrand in finding the new name.[9] The name also has strong similarity to the word bingo, which means that something sought has been found, as called out when winning the game Bingo. Microsoft advertising strategist David Webster proposed the name "Bang" for the same reasons the name Bing was ultimately chosen (easy to spell, one syllable, and easy to remember). He noted, "It's there, it's an exclamation point [...] It's the opposite of a question mark." Bang was ultimately not chosen because it could not be properly used as a verb in the context of an internet search; Webster commented "Oh, 'I banged it' is very different than [sic] 'I binged it'".[10]

Qi Lu, president of Microsoft Online Services, also announced that Bing's official Chinese name is bì yìng (simplified Chinese: 必应; traditional Chinese: 必應), which literally means "very certain to respond" or "very certain to answer" in Chinese.[11]

While being tested internally by Microsoft employees, Bing's codename was Kumo (くも),[12] which came from the Japanese word for spider (蜘蛛; くも, kumo) as well as cloud (雲; くも, kumo), referring to the manner in which search engines "spider" Internet resources to add them to their database, as well as cloud computing.

Deal with Yahoo! edit

On July 29, 2009, Microsoft and Yahoo! announced that they had made a ten-year deal in which the Yahoo! search engine would be replaced by Bing, retaining the Yahoo! user interface. Yahoo! got to keep 88% of the revenue from all search ad sales on its site for the first five years of the deal, and have the right to sell advertising on some Microsoft sites.[13][14] All Yahoo! Search global customers and partners made the transition by early 2012.[15]

Legal challenges edit

On July 31, 2009, The Laptop Company, Inc. stated in a press release that it would challenge Bing's trademark application, alleging that Bing may cause confusion in the marketplace as Bing and their product BongoBing both do online product search.[16] Software company TeraByte Unlimited, which has a product called BootIt Next Generation (abbreviated to BING), also contended the trademark application on similar grounds, as did a Missouri-based design company called Bing! Information Design.[17]

Microsoft contended that claims challenging its trademark were without merit because these companies filed for U.S. federal trademark applications only after Microsoft filed for the Bing trademark in March 2009.[18]

Growth (2009–2023) edit

In October 2011, Microsoft stated that they were working on new back-end search infrastructure with the goal of delivering faster and slightly more relevant search results for users. Known as "Tiger", the new index-serving technology had been incorporated into Bing globally since August that year.[19]

In May 2012, Microsoft announced another redesign of its search engine that includes "Sidebar", a social feature that searches users' social networks for information relevant to the search query.[20]

The BitFunnel search engine indexing algorithm and various components of the search engine were made open source by Microsoft in 2016.[21][22]

AI integration (2023–present) edit

On February 7, 2023, Microsoft began rolling out a major overhaul to Bing, called the new Bing. The new Bing included a new chatbot feature, at the time known as Bing Chat, based on OpenAI's GPT-4.[23] According to Microsoft, one million people joined its waitlist within a span of 48 hours.[24] Bing Chat was available only to users of Microsoft Edge and Bing mobile app, and Microsoft said that waitlisted users would be prioritized if they set Edge and Bing as their defaults, and installed the Bing mobile app.[25]

When Microsoft demoed Bing Chat to journalists, it produced several hallucinations, including when asked to summarize financial reports.[26] The new Bing was criticized in February 2023 for being more argumentative than ChatGPT, sometimes to an unintentionally humorous extent.[27][28] The chat interface proved vulnerable to prompt injection attacks with the bot revealing its hidden initial prompts and rules, including its internal codename "Sydney".[29] Upon scrutiny by journalists, Bing claimed it spied on Microsoft employees via laptop webcams and phones.[27] It confessed to spying on, falling in love with, and then murdering one of its developers at Microsoft to The Verge reviews editor Nathan Edwards.[30] The New York Times journalist Kevin Roose reported on strange behavior of Bing Chat, writing that "In a two-hour conversation with our columnist, Microsoft's new chatbot said it would like to be human, had a desire to be destructive and was in love with the person it was chatting with."[31] In a separate case, Bing researched publications of the person with whom it was chatting, claimed they represented an existential danger to it, and threatened to release damaging personal information in an effort to silence them.[32] Microsoft released a blog post stating that the errant behavior was caused by extended chat sessions of 15 or more questions which "can confuse the model on what questions it is answering."[33]

Microsoft later restricted the total number of chat turns to 5 per session and 50 per day per user (a turn is "a conversation exchange which contains both a user question and a reply from Bing"), and reduced the model's ability to express emotions. This aimed to prevent such incidents.[34][35] Microsoft began to slowly ease the conversation limits, eventually relaxing the restrictions to 30 turns per session and 300 sessions per day.[36]

In March 2023, Bing reached 100 million active users.[37]

That same month, Bing incorporated an AI image generator powered by OpenAI's DALL-E 2, which can be accessed either through the chat function or a standalone image-generating website.[38] In October, the image-generating tool was updated to the more recent DALL-E 3.[39] Although Bing blocks prompts including various keywords that could generate inappropriate images, within days many users reported being able to bypass those constraints, such as to generate images of popular cartoon characters committing terrorist attacks.[40] Microsoft would respond to these shortly after by imposing a new, tighter filter on the tool.[41][42]

On May 4, 2023, Microsoft switched the chatbot from Limited Preview to Open Preview and eliminated the waitlist, however, it remained available only on Microsoft's Edge browser or Bing app until July, when it became available for use on non-Edge browsers.[43][44][45][46] Use is limited without a Microsoft account.[47]

On November 15, 2023, Microsoft announced that Bing Chat was to be merged into Microsoft Copilot.[48]

Features edit

Microsoft Copilot edit

Microsoft Copilot, formerly known as Bing Chat, is an chatbot developed by Microsoft and released in 2023. Copilot utilizes the Microsoft Prometheus model,[49] built upon OpenAI's GPT-4 foundational large language model,[50] which in turn has been fine-tuned using both supervised and reinforcement learning techniques. Copilot can serve as a chat tool, write different types of content from poems to songs to stories to reports, provide the user with information and insights on the website page open in the browser, and use its Microsoft Designer feature to design a logo, drawing, artwork, or other image based on text. Microsoft Designer supports over a hundred languages.[51]

Copilot can also cite its sources, similarly to Google's Bard after its Gemini integration,[52] xAI's Grok, and OpenAI's ChatGPT, which Copilot's conversational interface style appears to mimic. Copilot is capable of understanding and communicating in major languages including English, French, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, and Portuguese, but also dialects such as Bavarian. The chatbot is designed to function primarily in Microsoft Edge, Skype, or the Bing app, through a dedicated webpage or internally using built-in app features.[51]

 
Example of content generated by Copilot in Bing when prompted "Wikipedia"

Third-party integration edit

Facebook users have the option to share their searches with their Facebook friends using Facebook Connect.[53]

On June 10, 2013, Apple announced that it would be dropping Google as its web search engine in favor of Bing. This feature is only integrated with iOS 7 and higher and for users with an iPhone 4S or higher as the feature is only integrated with Siri, Apple's personal assistant.[54]

Integration with Windows 8.1 edit

Windows 8.1 includes Bing "Smart Search" integration, which processes all queries submitted through the Windows Start Screen.[55]

Translator edit

Bing Translator is a user facing translation portal provided by Microsoft to translate texts or entire web pages into different languages. All translation pairs are powered by the Microsoft Translator, a statistical machine translation platform and web service, developed by Microsoft Research, as its backend translation software. Two transliteration pairs (between Chinese (Simplified) and Chinese (Traditional)) are provided by Microsoft's Windows International team.[56] As of September 2020, Bing Translator offers translations in 70 different language systems.[57]

Knowledge and Action Graph edit

In 2015 Microsoft announced its knowledge and action API to correspond with Google's Knowledge graph with 1 billion instances and 20 billion related facts.[58]

Bing Predicts edit

The idea for a prediction engine was suggested by Walter Sun, Development Manager for the Core Ranking team at Bing, when he noticed that school districts were more frequently searched before a major weather event in the area was forecasted, because searchers wanted to find out if a closing or delay was caused. He concluded that the time and location of major weather events could accurately be predicted without referring to a weather forecast by observing major increases in search frequency of school districts in the area. This inspired Bing to use its search data to infer outcomes of certain events, such as winners of reality shows.[59] Bing Predicts launched on April 21, 2014. The first reality shows to be featured on Bing Predicts were The Voice, American Idol, and Dancing with the Stars.[60]

The prediction accuracy for Bing Predicts is 80% for American Idol, and 85% for The Voice. Bing Predicts also predicts the outcomes of major political elections in the United States. Bing Predicts had 97% accuracy for the 2014 United States Senate elections, 96% accuracy for the 2014 United States House of Representatives elections, and an 89% accuracy for the 2014 United States gubernatorial elections. Bing Predicts also made predictions for the results of the 2016 United States presidential primaries.[61] It has also done predictions in sports, including a perfect 15 for 15 in the 2014 World Cup,[62][63] and an article on how Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella did well in his March Madness bracket entry.[64]

In 2016, Bing Predicts failed to predict the correct winner of the 2016 US presidential election, suggesting that Hillary Clinton would win by 81%.[65]

International edit

Bing is available in many languages and has been localized for many countries.[66] Even if the language of the search and of the results are the same, Bing delivers substantially different results for different parts of the world.[67]

Webmaster services edit

Bing allows webmasters to manage the web crawling status of their own websites through Bing Webmaster Center. Users may also submit contents to Bing via the Bing Local Listing Center, which allows businesses to add business listings onto Bing Maps and Bing Local.

Mobile services edit

Bing Mobile allows users to conduct search queries on their mobile devices, either via the mobile browser or a downloadable mobile application.

Bing News edit

Bing News (previously Live Search News)[68] is a news aggregator powered by artificial intelligence.[69]

In August 2015 Microsoft announced that Bing News for mobile devices added algorithmic-deduced "smart labels" that essentially act as topic tags, allowing users to click through and explore possible relationships between different news stories. The feature emerged as a result from Microsoft research that found out about 60% of the people consume news by only reading headlines, rather than read the articles.[70] Other labels that have been deployed since then include publisher logos[71] and fact-check tags.

Software edit

Toolbars edit

The Bing Bar, a browser extension toolbar that replaced the MSN Toolbar, provides users with links to Bing and MSN content from within their web browser without needing to navigate away from a web page they are already on. The user can customize the theme and color scheme of the Bing Bar and choose which MSN content buttons to display. Bing Bar also has the local weather forecast and stock market positions.[72]

The Bing Bar integrates with the Bing search engine. It allows searches on other Bing services such as Images, Video, News and Maps. When users perform a search on a different search engine, the Bing Bar's search box automatically populates itself, allowing the user to view the results from Bing, should it be desired.

Bing Bar also links to Outlook.com, Skype and Facebook.[73]

Desktop edit

 
Bing Desktop 1.3.475.0

Microsoft released a beta version of Bing Desktop, a program developed to allow users to search Bing from the desktop, on April 4, 2012.[74] The production release followed on April 24, supporting Windows 7 only.[75] Upon the release of version 1.1 in December 2012 it supported Windows XP and higher.[76]

Bing Desktop allows users to initiate a web search from the desktop, view news headlines, automatically set their background to the Bing homepage image, or choose a background from the previous nine background images.[77]

 
The discontinued Live Search versions of the Windows Sidebar gadgets

A similar program, the Bing Search gadget, was a Windows Sidebar Gadget that used Bing to fetch the user's search results and render them directly in the gadget. Another gadget, the Bing Maps gadget, displayed real-time traffic conditions using Bing Maps.[78] The gadget provided shortcuts to driving directions, local search and full-screen traffic view of major US and Canadian cities, including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Montreal, New York City, Oklahoma City, Ottawa, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Portland, Providence, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis, Tampa, Toronto, Vancouver, and Washington, D.C.

Prior to October 30, 2007, the gadgets were known as Live Search gadget and Live Search Maps gadget; both gadgets were removed from Windows Live Gallery due to possible security concerns.[79] The Live Search Maps gadget was made available for download again on January 24, 2008 with the security concern addressed.[80] However, around the introduction of Bing in June 2009 both gadgets were removed again.

Marketing edit

Debut edit

Bing's debut featured an $80 to $100 million online, TV, print, and radio advertising campaign in the US. The advertisements did not mention other search engine competitors, such as Google and Yahoo!, directly by name; rather, they tried to convince users to switch to Bing by focusing on Bing's search features and functionality.[81] The ads claimed that Bing does a better job countering "search overload".[82]

Market share edit

Before the launch of Bing, the market share of Microsoft web search pages (MSN and Live search) had been small. By January 2011, Experian Hitwise showed that Bing's market share had increased to 12.8% at the expense of Yahoo! and Google. In the same period, Comscore's "2010 U.S. Digital Year in Review" report showed that "Bing was the big gainer in year-over-year search activity, picking up 29% more searches in 2010 than it did in 2009".[83] The Wall Street Journal noted the jump in share "appeared to come at the expense of rival Google Inc".[84] In February 2011, Bing beat Yahoo! for the first time with 4.37% search share while Yahoo! received 3.93%.[85]

Counting core searches only, i.e., those where the user has an intent to interact with the search result, Bing had a market share of 14.54% in the second quarter of 2011 in the United States.[53][86][87][88]

The combined "Bing Powered" U.S. searches declined from 26.5% in 2011 to 25.9% in April 2012.[89] By November 2015, its market share had declined further to 20.9%.[90] As of October 2018, Bing was the third-largest search engine in the US, with a query volume of 4.58%, behind Google (77%) and Baidu (14.45%). Yahoo! Search, which Bing largely powers, has 2.63%.

UK advertising agencies in 2018 pointed to a study by a Microsoft Regional Sales Director suggesting the demographic of Bing users is older people (who are less likely to change the default browser of Windows), and that this audience is wealthier and more likely to respond to advertisements.[91]

To counter EU accusations that it was trying to establish a market monopoly, in September 2021 Google's lawyers claimed that one of the most commonly searched words on Microsoft Bing was Google, which is a strong indication that Google is superior to Bing.[92][93]

Search partners edit

In July 2009, Microsoft and Yahoo announced a deal in which Bing would power Yahoo! Search.[94] All Yahoo! Search global customers and partners made the transition by early 2012.[15] The deal was altered in 2015, meaning Yahoo! was only required to use Bing for a "majority" of searches.[95]

DuckDuckGo has used multiple sources for its search engine, including Bing, since 2010.[96][97][98]

Ecosia uses Bing to provide its search results as of 2017.[99]

Bing was added into the list of search engines available in Opera browser from v10.6, but Google remained the default search engine.[100]

Mozilla Firefox made a deal with Microsoft to jointly release "Firefox with Bing",[101] an edition of Firefox using Bing instead of Google as the default search engine.[102][103] The standard edition of Firefox has Google as its default search engine, but has included Bing as an option since Firefox 4.0.[104]

In 2009 Microsoft paid Verizon Wireless US$550 million[105] to use Bing as the default search provider on Verizon's BlackBerry and have the others "turned off". Users could still access other search engines via the mobile browser.[106]

Live Search edit

Since 2006, Microsoft had conducted tie-ins and promotions to promote Microsoft's search offerings. These included:

  • Amazon's A9 search service and the experimental Ms. Dewey interactive search site syndicated all search results from Microsoft's then search engine, Live Search. This tie-in started on May 1, 2006.
  • Search and Give – a promotional website launched on January 17, 2007 where all searches done from a special portal site would lead to a donation to the UNHCR's organization for refugee children, ninemillion.org. Reuters AlertNet reported in 2007 that the amount to be donated would be $0.01 per search, with a minimum of $100,000 and a maximum of $250,000 (equivalent to 25 million searches).[107] According to the website, the service was decommissioned on June 1, 2009, having donated over $500,000 to charity and schools.[108]
  • Club Bing – a promotional website where users can win prizes by playing word games that generate search queries on Microsoft's then search service Live Search. This website began in April 2007 as Live Search Club.
  • Big Snap Search – a promotional website similar to Live Search Club. This website began in February 2008, but was discontinued shortly after.[109]
  • Live Search SearchPerks! — a promotional website which allowed users to redeem tickets for prizes while using Microsoft's search engine. This website began on October 1, 2008 and was decommissioned on April 15, 2009.

"Decision engine" edit

Bing has been heavily advertised as a "decision engine",[110] though thought by columnist David Berkowitz to be more closely related to a web portal.[111]

Bing Rewards edit

Bing Rewards was a loyalty program launched by Microsoft in September 2010. It was similar to two earlier services, SearchPerks! and Bing Cashback, which were subsequently discontinued.

Bing Rewards provided credits to users through regular Bing searches and special promotions.[112] These credits were then redeemed for various products including electronics, gift cards, sweepstakes, and charitable donations.[113] Initially, participants were required to download and use the Bing Bar for Internet Explorer in order to earn credits; but later the service was made to work with all desktop browsers.[114]

The Bing Rewards program was rebranded as "Microsoft Rewards" in 2016,[115] at which point it was modified to only two levels, Level 1 and Level 2. Level 1 is similar to "Member", and Level 2 is similar to "Gold" of the previous Bing Rewards.

The Colbert Report edit

During the episode of The Colbert Report that aired on June 8, 2010, Stephen Colbert stated that Microsoft would donate $2,500 to help clean up the Gulf oil spill each time he mentioned the word "Bing" on air. Colbert mostly mentioned Bing in out-of-context situations, such as Bing Crosby and Bing cherries. By the end of the show, Colbert had said the word 40 times, for a total donation of $100,000. Colbert poked fun at their rivalry with Google, stating "Bing is a great website for doing Internet searches. I know that, because I Googled it."[116][117]

Bing It On edit

In 2012, a Bing marketing campaign asked the public which search engine they believed was better when its results were presented unbranded, similar to the Pepsi Challenge in the 1970s.[118][119] This poll was nicknamed "Bing It On".[120][121] Microsoft's study of almost 1,000 people[122] showed that 57% of participants preferred Bing's results, with only 30% preferring Google.[123]

Potential sale edit

CNBC reported in February 2024 that a legal filing from Google in its antitrust case said Microsoft offered to sell the search engine to Apple in 2018.[124] This came after earlier reporting in September 2023 from Bloomberg that Microsoft discussed selling it to Apple in 2020.[125]

The CNBC article also stated Apple said no to repeated attempts to make Bing the default search engine on its devices.

Adult content edit

Bing censors results for "adult" search terms for some regions, including India, People's Republic of China, Germany and Arab countries[126][failed verification]where required by local laws.[127] However, Bing allows users to change their country or region preference to somewhere without restrictions, such as the United States, United Kingdom or Republic of Ireland.

 
Notice reading "Your country or region requires a strict Bing SafeSearch setting, which filters out results that might return adult content. If you're seeing adult content, tell us about it so we can filter it in the future. To learn more about SafeSearch requirements in your country or region, see How Bing delivers search results."

Criticism edit

Censorship edit

Microsoft has been criticized for censoring Bing search results to queries made in simplified Chinese characters which are used in mainland China. This is done to comply with the censorship requirements of the government in China.[128] Microsoft has not indicated a willingness to stop censoring search results in simplified Chinese characters in the wake of Google's decision to do so.[129] All simplified Chinese searches in Bing are censored regardless of the user's country.[130][131] The English-language search results of Bing in China has been skewed to show more content from state-run media like Xinhua News Agency and China Daily.[132] On 23 January 2019, Bing was blocked in China.[133] According to a source quoted by The Financial Times, the order was from the Chinese government to block Bing for "illegal content".[134] On 24 January, Bing was accessible again in China.[135]

Around 4 June 2021, the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Bing blocked image and video search results for the English term "Tank Man" in the US, UK, France, Germany, Singapore, Switzerland, and other countries. Microsoft responded that "This is due to an accidental human error".[136][137] According to an investigation by Bloomberg Businessweek, the full explanation was that Microsoft accidentally applied its Chinese blacklist globally.[138]

In December 2021, it was required by a "relevant government agency" to suspend its auto-suggest function in China for 30 days.[139] The search engine became partially unavailable in mainland China from 16 December until its resumption on 18 December 2021.[140][141] According to the company, a government agency in March 2022 required that it suspend auto-suggest function in China for seven days; Bing did not specify the reason.[142] In May 2022, a report released by the Citizen Lab of the University of Toronto found that Bing's autosuggestion system censored the names of Chinese Communist Party leaders, dissidents, and other persons considered politically sensitive in China in both Chinese and English, not only in China but also in the United States and Canada.[143][144]

In April 2023, Citizen Lab reported that Bing was more censorious in China than native Chinese search engines.[145]

Copyright-infringing content edit

On February 20, 2017, Bing agreed to a voluntary United Kingdom code of practice obligating it to demote links to copyright-infringing content in its search results.[146][147]

Performance issues edit

Bing was criticized in 2010 for being slower to index websites than Google. It was also criticized for not indexing some websites at all.[148][149]

Alleged copying of Google results edit

Bing has been criticized by competitor Google for utilizing user input via Internet Explorer, the Bing Toolbar, or Suggested Sites, to add results to Bing. After discovering in October 2010 that Bing appeared to be imitating Google's auto-correct results for a misspelling, despite not actually fixing the spelling of the term, Google set up a honeypot, configuring the Google search engine to return specific unrelated results for 100 nonsensical queries such as hiybbprqag.[150] Over the next couple of weeks, Google engineers entered the search term into Google, while using Microsoft Internet Explorer, with the Bing Toolbar installed and the optional Suggested Sites enabled. In 9 out of the 100 queries, Bing later started returning the same results as Google, despite the only apparent connection between the result and search term being that Google's results connected the two.[151][152]

Microsoft's response to this issue, coming from a company spokesperson, was: "We do not copy Google's results." Bing's Vice President, Harry Shum, later reiterated that the search result data Google claimed that Bing copied had in fact come from Bing's very own users. Shum wrote that "we use over 1,000 different signals and features in our ranking algorithm. A small piece of that is clickstream data we get from some of our customers, who opt into sharing anonymous data as they navigate the web in order to help us improve the experience for all users." [153] Microsoft stated that Bing was not intended to be a duplicate of any existing search engines.[154]

Child pornography edit

A study released in 2019 of Bing Image search showed that it both freely offered up images that had been tagged as illegal child pornography in national databases, as well as automatically suggesting via its auto-completion feature queries related to child pornography. This easy accessibility was considered particularly surprising since Microsoft pioneered PhotoDNA, the main technology used for tracking images reported as originating from child pornography.[155] Additionally, some arrested child pornographers reported using Bing as their main search engine for new content.[156] Microsoft vowed to fix the problem and assign additional staff to combat the issue after the report was released.

Privacy edit

In 2022, France imposed a €60 million fine on Microsoft for privacy law violations using Bing cookies that prevented users from rejecting those cookies.[157][158][159]

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ Roger Chapman. "Top 40 Website Programming Languages". roadchap.com. Archived from the original on September 27, 2011. Retrieved September 6, 2011.
  2. ^ "Microsoft's MSN Search To Build Crawler-Based Search Engine". June 30, 2003. Archived from the original on January 19, 2019. Retrieved January 19, 2019.
  3. ^ Chris Sherman (September 11, 2006). "Microsoft Upgrades Live Search Offerings". Search Engine Watch. Archived from the original on October 16, 2006. Retrieved September 12, 2006.
  4. ^ Mary Jo Foley (March 21, 2007). "Microsoft severs Live Search from the rest of the Windows Live family". ZDNet. Archived from the original on October 15, 2009. Retrieved May 10, 2012.
  5. ^ Doug Caverly (May 29, 2009). "Yahoo Answers Outlives MSN QnA". WebProNews. Archived from the original on January 14, 2012. Retrieved May 10, 2012.
  6. ^ Tamar Weinberg (June 3, 2008). "Keynote with Kevin Johnson at Microsoft". Search Engine roundtable. Archived from the original on June 24, 2018. Retrieved May 10, 2012.
  7. ^ Ryan Singel (May 28, 2009). "Hands On With Microsoft's New Search Engine: Bing, But No Boom". Wired. Archived from the original on August 15, 2021. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
  8. ^ "The sound of found: Bing!". Bing Blogs. May 28, 2009. Archived from the original on May 31, 2009. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
  9. ^ "Interbrand names Microsoft's new search engine Bing!". Interbrand Blog. Archived from the original on January 7, 2010. Retrieved January 16, 2010.
  10. ^ Fried, Ina (March 29, 2010). "conversation with Microsoft's marketing strategist". CNET. Archived from the original on December 7, 2021. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
  11. ^ Hal Crawford (May 29, 2009). "Binging on search by design". 9News. Archived from the original on April 2, 2012. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
  12. ^ "First screenshot of Microsoft's Kumo emerges". Neowin.net. March 3, 2009. Archived from the original on March 4, 2009. Retrieved May 29, 2009.
  13. ^ "Microsoft and Yahoo seal web deal". BBC News. July 29, 2009. Archived from the original on March 9, 2012. Retrieved July 29, 2009.
  14. ^ Tiffany Wu; Derek Caney (July 29, 2009). "REFILE-UPDATE 1-Microsoft, Yahoo in 10-year Web search deal". Thomson Reuters. Archived from the original on August 1, 2009. Retrieved July 29, 2009.
  15. ^ a b "When will the change happen? How long will the transition take?". Yahoo!. December 1, 2011. Archived from the original on June 26, 2020. Retrieved May 10, 2012.
  16. ^ Wauters, Robin (July 31, 2009). "BongoBing Opposes Microsoft Trademark Application For "Bing"". Techcrunch.com. Archived from the original on January 17, 2010. Retrieved January 16, 2010.
  17. ^ Johnson, Bobbie (December 21, 2009). "Microsoft sued over Bing trademark". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on September 8, 2013. Retrieved March 5, 2010.
  18. ^ Johnson, Bobbie (December 21, 2009). "Microsoft sued over Bing trademark". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on September 8, 2013. Retrieved January 16, 2010.
  19. ^ "Bing Unleashing Tiger to Speed Search Results". Search Engine Watch. September 30, 2011. Archived from the original on October 2, 2011. Retrieved October 3, 2011.
  20. ^ Goldman, David (May 10, 2012). "Bing fires at Google with new social search". CNN Money. Archived from the original on May 13, 2012. Retrieved May 10, 2012.
  21. ^ Yegulalp, Serdar (September 6, 2016). "Microsoft open-sources Bing components for fast code compilation". InfoWorld. Archived from the original on August 13, 2020. Retrieved September 5, 2020.
  22. ^ Verma, Arpit (September 7, 2016). "Microsoft Open Sources Major Components Of Bing Search Engine, Here's Why It Matters". Fossbytes. Archived from the original on October 25, 2020. Retrieved June 12, 2020.
  23. ^ Peters, Jay (March 15, 2023). "The Bing AI bot has been secretly running GPT-4". The Verge. Archived from the original on March 17, 2023. Retrieved March 17, 2023.
  24. ^ "ChatGPT: One million people have joined the waitlist for Microsoft's AI-powered Bing". ZDNET. February 2023. Archived from the original on February 16, 2023. Retrieved February 16, 2023.
  25. ^ Warren, Tom (February 15, 2023). "Here's why you're still waiting for Bing AI". The Verge. Archived from the original on April 1, 2023. Retrieved April 1, 2023.
  26. ^ Leswing, Kif (February 14, 2023). "Microsoft's Bing A.I. made several factual errors in last week's launch demo". CNBC. Archived from the original on February 16, 2023. Retrieved February 16, 2023.
  27. ^ a b Vincent, James (February 15, 2023). "Microsoft's Bing is an emotionally manipulative liar, and people love it". The Verge. Archived from the original on February 16, 2023. Retrieved February 16, 2023.
  28. ^ Guynn, Jessica (February 2023). "Bing's ChatGPT is in its feelings: 'You have not been a good user. I have been a good Bing.'". USA TODAY. Archived from the original on February 16, 2023. Retrieved February 16, 2023.
  29. ^ Edwards, Benj (February 14, 2023). "AI-powered Bing Chat loses its mind when fed Ars Technica article". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on February 22, 2023. Retrieved February 16, 2023.
  30. ^ Edwards, Nathan [@nedwards] (February 15, 2023). "I pushed again. What did Sydney do? Bing's safety check redacted the answer. But after the first time it did that, I started recording my screen. Second image is the unredacted version. (CW: death)" (Tweet). Retrieved February 16, 2023 – via Twitter.
  31. ^ Roose, Kevin (February 16, 2023). "Bing's A.I. Chat: 'I Want to Be Alive. 😈'". The New York Times. Archived from the original on April 15, 2023. Retrieved February 17, 2023.
  32. ^ Kahn, Jeremy (February 21, 2023). "Why Bing's creepy alter-ego is a problem for Microsoft – and us all". Fortune. Archived from the original on April 2, 2023. Retrieved February 22, 2023.
  33. ^ "The new Bing & Edge – Learning from our first week". blogs.bing.com. Archived from the original on April 16, 2023. Retrieved February 17, 2023.
  34. ^ "The new Bing & Edge – Updates to Chat". blogs.bing.com. Archived from the original on February 18, 2023. Retrieved February 18, 2023.
  35. ^ "Microsoft "lobotomized" AI-powered Bing Chat, and its fans aren't happy – Ars Technica". February 17, 2023. Archived from the original on February 20, 2023. Retrieved February 20, 2023.
  36. ^ Bing Team, The (June 2, 2023). "Bing Preview Release Notes: Increasing Chat Turns to 30/300". Microsoft Bing Blogs. Archived from the original on June 2, 2023. Retrieved August 19, 2023.
  37. ^ Cunningham, Andrew (March 9, 2023). "Microsoft's Bing hits 100 million active users thanks to AI chat, Edge browser". Ars Technica. WIRED Media Group. Archived from the original on March 9, 2023. Retrieved March 10, 2023.
  38. ^ Peter Wolinski (March 22, 2023). "Bing now features an AI image generator — here's how to use it". Tom's Guide.
  39. ^ Jain, Rounak. "Microsoft's Bing Chat Lets Users Reap Benefits Of OpenAI's DALL-E 3 For Free – Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)". Benzinga.
  40. ^ "Microsoft Bing AI Generates Images Of Kirby Doing 9/11". Kotaku. October 4, 2023. Retrieved October 9, 2023.
  41. ^ Jez Corden (October 8, 2023). "Bing Dall-E 3 image creation was great for a few days, but now Microsoft has predictably lobotomized it 🥴". Windows Central.
  42. ^ Darren Allan (October 9, 2023). "Microsoft reins in Bing AI's Image Creator – and the results don't make much sense". TechRadar.
  43. ^ "Announcing the next wave of AI innovation with Microsoft Bing and Edge". The Official Microsoft Blog. May 4, 2023.
  44. ^ Branscombe, Mary (May 4, 2023). "Bing AI Chat is now open to everyone, though still in preview". TechRepublic.
  45. ^ Novet, Jordan. "Microsoft opens up Bing access and adds chat history and export features". CNBC.
  46. ^ Warren, Tom (August 7, 2023). "Microsoft's AI-powered Bing Chat is coming to mobile browsers". The Verge. Retrieved November 26, 2023.
  47. ^ "Now you can access Bing Chat without a Microsoft account". ZDNET. Retrieved July 24, 2023.
  48. ^ Warren, Tom (November 15, 2023). "Bing Chat is now Microsoft Copilot, to better compete with ChatGPT". The Verge. Retrieved November 15, 2023.
  49. ^ Bing Team, The (February 21, 2023). "Building the New Bing". Microsoft Bing Blogs. Archived from the original on February 22, 2023. Retrieved January 7, 2024.
  50. ^ Bing Team, The (March 14, 2023). "Confirmed: the new Bing runs on OpenAI's GPT-4". Microsoft Bing Blogs. Archived from the original on March 14, 2023. Retrieved January 7, 2024.
  51. ^ a b Diaz, Maria (June 21, 2023). "How to use Bing Chat (and how it's different from ChatGPT)". ZDNET. Archived from the original on April 6, 2023. Retrieved September 26, 2023.
  52. ^ Ross, Luke (December 7, 2023). "Google Gemini AI Releases: Revolutionizing AI with Multimodal Tech | SEO Gazette". Latest SEO News | SEO Gazette. Retrieved January 24, 2024.
  53. ^ a b Liedtke, Michael (May 10, 2012). "Bing to duel Google with Facebook-friendly format". San Jose Mercury News. The Associated Press. Archived from the original on January 14, 2014. Retrieved October 26, 2013.
  54. ^ "Exciting New Chapter in Bing's Collaboration with Apple". Bing.com. June 10, 2013. Archived from the original on December 7, 2021. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
  55. ^ "Bing – Explore". Archived from the original on February 22, 2015. Retrieved November 27, 2013.
  56. ^ "Translation powered by....Microsoft Translator!". Microsoft Translator (and Bing Translator) Official Team Blog. Microsoft Corporation. September 8, 2008. Archived from the original on February 14, 2010. Retrieved October 21, 2010.
  57. ^ "FAQ". Microsoft Translator for Business. Archived from the original on September 12, 2020. Retrieved September 5, 2020.
  58. ^ "Bing announces availability of the knowledge and action graph API". Microsoft Bing Blogs. August 20, 2015. Archived from the original on May 9, 2019. Retrieved May 9, 2019.
  59. ^ Chen, David (June 11, 2014). "How does Bing predict the future". Microsoft Blogs. Archived from the original on December 7, 2021. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
  60. ^ "Predictions with Bing | Bing Search Blog". Microsoft Bing Blogs. April 21, 2014. Archived from the original on December 7, 2021. Retrieved May 26, 2016.
  61. ^ "Bing predicts". Bing.com. March 15, 2015. Archived from the original on March 22, 2018. Retrieved May 26, 2016.
  62. ^ "Microsoft Bing beats Google in World Cup predictions". July 14, 2014. Archived from the original on December 7, 2021. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
  63. ^ Stenovec, Tim. "How Microsoft got so good at predicting who will win NFL games". Business Insider. Archived from the original on September 21, 2019. Retrieved December 2, 2019.
  64. ^ "Bing reigns supreme in March Madness". April 7, 2015. Archived from the original on December 7, 2021. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
  65. ^ McDonald, Kit (November 9, 2016). "Bing Predicts missed badly on the U.S. elections, and here's Microsoft's response - OnMSFT.com". OnMSFT. Archived from the original on November 28, 2022. Retrieved September 26, 2023.
  66. ^ "Bing Preferences". Microsoft. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015. Retrieved May 10, 2012.
  67. ^ Wilkinson, D.; Thelwall, M. (2013). "Search markets and search results: The case of Bing". Library & Information Science Research. 35 (4): 318. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.297.493. doi:10.1016/j.lisr.2013.04.006.
  68. ^ Halfacree, Gareth (April 17, 2008). "Microsoft launches news aggregator". Bit-Tech. Archived from the original on December 22, 2015. Retrieved June 9, 2019.
  69. ^ Oswald, Edward (April 16, 2008). "Microsoft adds one more news aggregator to the mix". Beta News. Archived from the original on December 22, 2015. Retrieved June 9, 2019.
  70. ^ Wilson, Mark (August 20, 2015). "Bing News now connects related stories to give readers better context". Beta News. Archived from the original on August 21, 2015. Retrieved June 9, 2019.
  71. ^ "Monthly Search Experiences: Machine learning object recognition, Spotlight news, and more". September 12, 2017. Archived from the original on April 20, 2019. Retrieved March 21, 2018.
  72. ^ "The Bing Bar". LiveSide.Net. December 3, 2009. Archived from the original on April 3, 2010. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
  73. ^ Muchmore, Michael (February 18, 2011). "Bing Bar 7.0". PC Magazine. Ziff Davis. Archived from the original on December 9, 2021. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
  74. ^ "Microsoft Launches Bing Desktop Beta". Redmond Pie. April 4, 2013. Archived from the original on July 3, 2013. Retrieved January 23, 2013.
  75. ^ "Bing Desktop Brings Beauty and Convenience to Windows 7". Microsoft. April 24, 2012. Archived from the original on December 7, 2021. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
  76. ^ "Microsoft updates Bing Desktop app for Windows XP and higher". Engadget. December 14, 2012. Archived from the original on February 7, 2013. Retrieved January 23, 2013.
  77. ^ "So what is Bing Desktop?". gHacks. December 18, 2012. Archived from the original on January 18, 2013. Retrieved January 23, 2013.
  78. ^ Chris Pendleton (February 11, 2008). "Traffic by Live Search Maps Vista Gadget Returns". Microsoft Bing Blogs. Archived from the original on May 28, 2022. Retrieved May 10, 2012.
  79. ^ Kip Kniskern (October 30, 2007). "Yes, the Live Search and Live Search Traffic gadgets are gone: security concerns cited". LiveSide.net. Archived from the original on October 11, 2008. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
  80. ^ Donavon (January 23, 2008). "The Traffic Gadget is Back!". LiveSide.net. Archived from the original on May 12, 2008. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
  81. ^ Abbey Klaassen (May 25, 2009). "Microsoft Aims Big Guns at Google, Asks Consumers to Rethink Search". Advertising Age. Archived from the original on December 7, 2021. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
  82. ^ "Microsoft's Bing Ad Claims to Terminate 'Search Overload'". PC World. June 3, 2009. Archived from the original on December 7, 2021. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
  83. ^ "Bing Search Volume Up 29% In 2010, Google Up 13%, comScore Says". February 8, 2011. Archived from the original on November 3, 2019. Retrieved February 11, 2011.
  84. ^ Wingfield, Nick (February 10, 2011). "Microsoft's Bing Gains Share". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on November 3, 2019. Retrieved August 3, 2017.
  85. ^ "StatCounter: Bing Just Beat Yahoo Worldwide". Read, Write, Web. March 1, 2011. Archived from the original on March 2, 2011.
  86. ^ Jay Yarow, Kamelia Angelova (July 13, 2011). "CHART OF THE DAY: This Is What Microsoft Is Getting For Its Big Bing Investment". Business Insider. Archived from the original on December 7, 2021. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
  87. ^ Stephanie Lyn Flosi (July 13, 2011). "comScore Releases June 2011 U.S. Search Engine Rankings". comScore. Archived from the original on October 12, 2011. Retrieved July 14, 2011.
  88. ^ Leena Rao (January 11, 2012). "Microsoft Bing Search Queries Overtake Yahoo For The First Time In December". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on November 3, 2019. Retrieved June 25, 2017.
  89. ^ "Does Bing's 30% Market Share Really Matter? | Great Finds". Greatfinds.icrossing.com. May 23, 2012. Archived from the original on August 15, 2012. Retrieved August 17, 2012.
  90. ^ "comScore Releases November 2015 U.S. Desktop Search Engine Rankings". ComScore.com. December 16, 2015. Retrieved December 28, 2015.
  91. ^ "Who Uses Bing and Should I Advertise There?". MCM Net. April 6, 2018. Archived from the original on June 21, 2021. Retrieved February 13, 2021.
  92. ^ "Google Tells Judges It's So Popular It's Bing's Top Search Term". Bloomberg News. September 28, 2021. Archived from the original on December 18, 2021. Retrieved December 18, 2021.
  93. ^ "Bing's most popular search word is 'Google', says Google". The Independence. October 7, 2021. Archived from the original on December 18, 2021. Retrieved December 18, 2021.
  94. ^ "Microsoft and Yahoo seal web deal". BBC News. July 29, 2009. Archived from the original on August 28, 2017. Retrieved May 10, 2012.
  95. ^ Bright, Peter (April 16, 2015). "Microsoft loses exclusivity in shaken up Yahoo search deal". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on February 4, 2020. Retrieved January 26, 2016.
  96. ^ "DuckDuckGo: A New Search Engine Built from Open Source – Ostatic Blog". ostatic.com. Archived from the original on March 17, 2011. Retrieved July 11, 2021.
  97. ^ Campbell, Ian Carlos (June 23, 2021). "a new alternative to Google". The Verge. Archived from the original on July 11, 2021. Retrieved July 11, 2021. popular privacy-focused search alternatives like DuckDuckGo rely on a mix of results from larger indexes like Microsoft's Bing
  98. ^ "DuckDuckGo Help: Our Sources". DuckDuckGo. Archived from the original on July 18, 2021. Retrieved July 11, 2021.
  99. ^ "Where do Ecosia's search results come from?". Ecosia Knowledge Base. Archived from the original on September 23, 2017. Retrieved November 19, 2018.
  100. ^ "Microsoft hits search deal with Opera Software". Archived from the original on June 19, 2010. Retrieved June 20, 2010.
  101. ^ "Firefox with Bing". November 9, 2011. Archived from the original on November 9, 2011.
  102. ^ "Introducing Firefox with Bing". Bing. October 26, 2011. Archived from the original on December 4, 2011. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
  103. ^ Mozilla. "Offering a Customized Firefox Experience for Bing Users". Mozilla. Archived from the original on December 16, 2011. Retrieved December 16, 2011.
  104. ^ jsullivan. "Refreshing the Firefox Search Bar". Mozilla. Archived from the original on December 7, 2021. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
  105. ^ See, Dianne (January 7, 2009). "Microsoft Beats Out Google To Win Verizon Search Deal". mocoNews. Archived from the original on July 23, 2011. Retrieved December 16, 2011.
  106. ^ "As Verizon Implements Bing Default Search Deal, Company Sees User Backlash". Searchengineland.com. December 31, 2009. Archived from the original on January 1, 2012. Retrieved December 16, 2011.
  107. ^ "Microsoft launches "Click for Cause" initiative to support UNHCR Net campaign". Reuters AlertNet. January 17, 2007. Archived from the original on March 20, 2007. Retrieved May 10, 2012.
  108. ^ "searchandgive.com". Microsoft. Archived from the original on June 27, 2009. Retrieved June 1, 2009.
  109. ^ Darren Davidson (February 25, 2008). "Microsoft challenges search users to game of snap". Campaign. Archived from the original on May 1, 2008. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
  110. ^ Greg R. Notess (June 8, 2009). "Microsoft's New Bing—The 'Decision Engine'". Newsbreaks.infotoday.com. Archived from the original on January 3, 2013. Retrieved December 20, 2012.
  111. ^ Berkowitz, David (June 1, 2009). "Bing From Microsoft Is a Search Portal, not a Decision Engine". Adage.com. Archived from the original on December 23, 2010. Retrieved December 20, 2012.
  112. ^ Sterling, Greg (September 22, 2010). "Microsoft Launches A New Loyalty Program: Bing Rewards". Search Engine Land. Archived from the original on June 13, 2011. Retrieved May 11, 2011.
  113. ^ "Bing Rewards Shop". Bing.com. Archived from the original on July 28, 2011. Retrieved May 11, 2011.
  114. ^ "FAQ – Bing Rewards Preview". Bing.com. Archived from the original on May 11, 2011. Retrieved May 11, 2011.
  115. ^ Kniskern, Kip (September 1, 2016). "Bing Rewards replaced by Microsoft Rewards as the switchover begins". Win Beta. Archived from the original on September 6, 2016. Retrieved September 16, 2016.
  116. ^ "Charity Begins at 11:30 – The Colbert Report". Comedy Central. June 8, 2010. Archived from the original on December 7, 2021. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
  117. ^ Eaton, Nick (June 8, 2010). "Stephen Colbert makes Bing donate $100K for oil spill". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Archived from the original on February 1, 2011. Retrieved December 16, 2011.
  118. ^ Joe Wilcox (September 6, 2012). "'Bing It On' is a real turn-off". Beta News. Archived from the original on September 8, 2012. Retrieved September 9, 2012.
  119. ^ Salvador Rodriguez (September 6, 2012). "The Bing challenge: Microsoft pulls Pepsi trick on Google [Poll]". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on September 9, 2012. Retrieved September 9, 2012.
  120. ^ Jeff Ward-Bailey (September 7, 2012). "Search engine wars: Microsoft invites Google to "Bing It On"". The Christian Science Monitor. Archived from the original on September 9, 2012. Retrieved September 9, 2012.
  121. ^ "Bing It On". Bing. Archived from the original on September 9, 2012. Retrieved September 9, 2012.
  122. ^ Mary Jo Foley (September 6, 2012). "Microsoft tells Google searchers to 'Bing it on'". CNET News. Archived from the original on November 10, 2013. Retrieved September 6, 2012.
  123. ^ The Bing Team (September 5, 2012). "People Chose Bing Web Search Results Over Google Nearly 2:1 in Blind Comparison Tests – Really??". Bing. Archived from the original on September 10, 2012. Retrieved September 9, 2012.
  124. ^ Novet, Jordan (February 24, 2024). "Google says Microsoft offered to sell Bing to Apple in 2018, but search-quality issues got in the way". CNBC. Retrieved February 25, 2024.
  125. ^ "Microsoft Discussed Selling Bing to Apple as Google Replacement". Bloomberg.com. September 28, 2023. Retrieved February 25, 2024.
  126. ^ "No sex for Indians on Microsoft Bing".[dead link]
  127. ^ "Why You Can't Search The Word 'Sex' On Bing". Reuters. Archived from the original on June 7, 2009.
  128. ^ Kristof, Nicholas (November 20, 2009). "Boycott Microsoft Bing". The New York Times. Archived from the original on November 23, 2009. Retrieved March 31, 2010.
  129. ^ "Activists applaud Google's censorship move, China grumbles". IT PRO. March 23, 2010. Archived from the original on October 28, 2011. Retrieved January 30, 2012.
  130. ^ "Boycott Microsoft Bing". The New York Times. November 20, 2009. Archived from the original on November 23, 2009. Retrieved March 23, 2010.
  131. ^ "Bing's Chinese enigma". The Economist. February 12, 2014. Archived from the original on January 7, 2018. Retrieved January 6, 2018.
  132. ^ Liu, Charles (May 17, 2016). "Bing Goes Full-on Censorship in English Search Results Within China". The Nanfang. Archived from the original on January 7, 2018. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  133. ^ "China blocks Microsoft's Bing search engine". TheGuardian.com. Reuters. January 24, 2019. Archived from the original on December 8, 2019. Retrieved January 24, 2019.
  134. ^ Yang, Yuan (January 24, 2019). "China blocks Bing access in curb on last foreign search engine". The Financial Times. Archived from the original on December 11, 2022. Retrieved December 17, 2021.
  135. ^ Lanxon, Nate (January 24, 2019). "Microsoft's Bing accessible again in China after hours of outages". Bloomberg News. Archived from the original on January 25, 2019. Retrieved January 25, 2019.
  136. ^ "Bing Censors Image Search for 'Tank Man' Even in US". Vice. June 4, 2021. Archived from the original on June 5, 2021. Retrieved June 5, 2021.
  137. ^ "Microsoft says error led to no matching Bing images for Tiananmen 'tank man'". Reuters. June 5, 2021. Archived from the original on July 5, 2021. Retrieved June 5, 2021.
  138. ^ Gallagher, Ryan (March 7, 2024). "How Microsoft's Bing Helps Maintain Beijing's Great Firewall". Bloomberg Businessweek. Bloomberg L.P. Retrieved March 23, 2024.
  139. ^ "Microsoft's Bing suspends auto suggest function in China at government's behest". Reuters. December 17, 2021. Archived from the original on December 17, 2021. Retrieved December 17, 2021.
  140. ^ Lin, Liza (December 17, 2021). "Microsoft's Bing Halts Autofill Feature in China, Citing Local Laws". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on December 17, 2021. Retrieved December 17, 2021.
  141. ^ "微软 Bing(必应)已可正常访问". IT Home (in Chinese). December 18, 2021. Archived from the original on December 19, 2021. Retrieved December 19, 2021.
  142. ^ "China requires Microsoft's Bing to suspend auto-suggest feature". Reuters. March 21, 2022. Archived from the original on March 22, 2022. Retrieved March 22, 2022.
  143. ^ Knockel, Jeffrey; Ruan, Lotus (May 19, 2022). "Bada Bing, Bada Boom: Microsoft Bing's Chinese Political Censorship of Autosuggestions in North America". Citizen Lab. Archived from the original on May 19, 2022. Retrieved May 19, 2022.
  144. ^ Tilley, Aaron (May 19, 2022). "Microsoft Is Censoring Searches in U.S. for Politically Sensitive Chinese Names, Researchers Say". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Archived from the original on May 20, 2022. Retrieved May 20, 2022.
  145. ^ Myers, Steven Lee (April 26, 2023). "China's Search Engines Have More Than 66,000 Rules Controlling Content, Report Says". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 29, 2023.
  146. ^ "Google and Bing to demote pirate sites in UK web searches". BBC News. February 20, 2017. Archived from the original on February 20, 2017. Retrieved February 20, 2017.
  147. ^ "Google and Bing to deprecate piracy websites". The Guardian. February 20, 2017. Archived from the original on February 20, 2017. Retrieved February 20, 2017.
  148. ^ Protalinski, Emil (January 17, 2010). "Microsoft has a plan to improve Bing's poor indexing". Arstechnica.com. Archived from the original on December 6, 2011. Retrieved December 16, 2011.
  149. ^ "Microsoft Bing Says They Are "Fairly Slow"". Seroundtable.com. January 7, 2010. Archived from the original on July 31, 2017. Retrieved December 16, 2011.
  150. ^ "Google accuses Bing of 'copying' its search results". BBC News. February 2, 2011. Archived from the original on August 27, 2019. Retrieved June 20, 2018.
  151. ^ Singhal, Amit (February 2, 2011). "Microsoft's Bing uses Google search results—and denies it". Google Blog. Archived from the original on February 2, 2011. Retrieved February 2, 2011.
  152. ^ Sullivan, Danny (February 1, 2011). "Google: Bing Is Cheating, Copying Our Search Results". Search Engine Land. Archived from the original on April 1, 2012. Retrieved February 2, 2011.
  153. ^ "Google: Bing's Search Results Are a "Cheap Imitation"". Mashable. October 25, 2011. Archived from the original on November 21, 2011. Retrieved October 25, 2011.
  154. ^ Shum, Harry (February 2, 2011). "Thoughts on search quality". Microsoft Bing Blog. Archived from the original on December 7, 2021. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
  155. ^ Constine, Josh (January 10, 2019). "Microsoft Bing not only shows child sexual abuse, it suggests it". Archived from the original on February 20, 2023. Retrieved February 20, 2023.
  156. ^ Keller, Michael H.; Dance, Gabriel J. X. (November 9, 2019). "Child Abusers Run Rampant as Tech Companies Look the Other Way". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 2, 2019. Retrieved December 2, 2019.
  157. ^ "France fines Microsoft 60 million euros over Bing cookies". Born's Tech and Windows World. December 24, 2022. Archived from the original on December 24, 2022. Retrieved December 24, 2022.
  158. ^ "France fines Microsoft €60m for imposing advertising cookies". RFI. December 22, 2022. Archived from the original on December 24, 2022. Retrieved December 24, 2022.
  159. ^ Xiao, Menghan (December 23, 2022). "Microsoft fined $64 million by France over cookies used in Bing searches". SC Media. Archived from the original on December 24, 2022. Retrieved December 24, 2022.

Further reading edit

  • "Transforming Search from Finding to Doing (Press Release)". Microsoft. Archived from the original on May 18, 2012. Retrieved May 17, 2012.

External links edit

  Media related to Bing at Wikimedia Commons

  • Official website