Submitted by “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.” So, you pay for a product, and then Microsoft shoves ads in your face. Scumbags. Then again, they’ve done the same on the Xbox, which is now virtually unusable due to all the ads plastered all over your dashboard. And then people say Google is bad with ads.
as long as it can be turned off, no problem
In the Beta there is a selector above the search box, where you can choose to search:
Everywhere
Settings
Files
Web images
Web videos
The web* are the bing results. You get local results instantly as you type, wider results including the bing ones when you hit the search button.
Edited 2013-07-05 14:44 UTC
You can also turn off Bing search results from the Control Panel.
Isn’t this essentially what’s been happening in Ubuntu for a while?
It’s all depressingly predictable. Ad revenues are regarded as an important stream of income by pretty much everyone, so I think we can expect this to become even more prevalent as time goes on.
Yes, but you don’t pay anything for Ubuntu. If I pay for a product I want the cleanest experience possible, not a big screen with ads.
You don’t pay for Bing.
You pay for Windows.
I’ll refer you to my prior comment. You don’t pay for Bing. This is about ads being shown in the Bing application which runs on Windows, not in Windows.
This functionality can be disabled, but most won’t because most aren’t as melodramatic.
It’s part of Windows. It’s like Apple plastering ads over Safari and then excusing that with “it’s just bundled, not an OS component”.
Safari isn’t a core part of the OS, and advertising in the product would be the prerogative of that team.
You did not purchase perpetual rights to an ad free Bing experience, you purchased Windows.
Chromebooks which are sold to the end user also serve ads in the various web apps they promote. Android does much worse.
But it is deeply integrated in Mac OS X, not removable like Konqueror in KDE, right?
You pay for Windows and its functionality. If windows search can’t return results without using Bing then it’s defective by design.
However, it looks like the “feature” can be turned off (just as it can be turned off on Ubuntu) so no harm is done.
I’d be more worried about advertisers getting access to Kinect on the Xbox but that is another topic.
Right. As has been stated, and you acknowledge, the feature can be turned off.
In a more general sense, you have been receiving ads for value add services in products you pay for since forever.
This is a complete non issue.
No, this is the first time its been in windows. That makes this an issue. As demonstrated with the Xbox one issue ( as well other issues in windows 8) , if consumers actively protest something they don’t like they can get microsoft to change their mind.
So if people don’t like it, they should bitch about it as that’s the only way they can change stuff in microsoft products.
You can bitch if you’d like, because thats what it is, baseless bitching about an optional feature. That’s your own time you’re wasting.
The feedback should be directed at the Bing team, not at Windows as a whole because Windows does not own that feature.
How many of you have submitted feedback or let alone installed Windows 8.1? My problem is that this isn’t a legitimate good faith complaint, but more of a red meat article for the rabid OSAlert collective to get to take part in the echo chamber.
People who mostly don’t use the product, don’t provide feedback through the accurate channel, yet want to act like the sky is falling.
I wonder how many have even seen the advertising in question.
That’s turned on by default.
Here is the hierarchy of blame
Microsoft > windows > bing
Anyone in that chain is to blame and any criticism can be leveled at anyone to effect the chain.
It is definitely a part of windows, per the announcement. Its something that you can turn off in windows, but not something that you can remove from windows.
http://community.advertising.microsoft.com/msa/en/global/b/blog/arc…
I’m talking about feedback. Not blame. If you want to affect change, the Bing team are the ones to complain to.
Why though? Because they write the app, own the feature, and have the freedom to include advertising if they wish. The Bing app is serviced via the Windows Store, interfaces with the Search Charm using standard APIs, and therefore is no more integrated into the OS than Google could potentially be.
When my customers have an issue with my app they don’t contact Microsoft or complain to OSAlert, they come to me.
I’m at work now, but when I get home I’ll cite the relevant 8.1 APIs
Are you saying that by default a retail or OEM version of windows 8. will *not* come with Bing ads in search results? If it is something that only shows up after installing the Bing app from the windows store, then I’d agree with you.
If its something that is installed by default and turned on by default in windows 8.1, then I don’t agree. This is what all of the Microsoft blog posts seem to say. But if they’re wrong, then they’re wrong.
Windows is more than the kernel, its the operating system, and the default apps. I would still blame windows and also include them in any complaint if its included.
I’m actually not sure if Bing is completely severable. I need to get home and check. Itd be a step backwards if it wasn’t. With Windows 8 the only unremovable modern app was the Store which had special privileges anyway.
I guess my general way of summing it up, and why the search results don’t bother me is this: Its not in Windows proper per say. The ad results are shown inside the canvas of the Bing app, and not in the OS itself.
For example the ads don’t invade the search charm and advertising on live tiles or notifications is forbidden.
Given this, the story here is that Bing which happens to show advertisements inside the app ships by default. This isn’t new to Windows, Windows 8 shipped with a few apps that had advertisements too.
Its up to that team.
Actually, it isn’t. There are ads in some of the Metro apps in Windows 8.
But I have a policy when it comes to ads… I don’t really care, as long as I don’t see them. If they only show up when I’m doing a search on Bing, then fine. But if they show up when I’m doing a search for a local file, or on one of the Metro tiles (which I wouldn’t put past MS at this point), then I have a problem with it.
On the Xbox 360, where the ads showed up on the tiles as soon as I booted the thing, that’s kind of hard to miss. So I sold it as soon as the ads started popping up, and that was the end for me and the Xbox brand. If they’re gonna charge me $300+ and make me pay a monthly fee to access services that are free on other devices, I don’t want to see ads.
Edited 2013-07-05 20:54 UTC
Your Xbox no longer plays games because of ads? Wow.
Hyperbolic lead ins are nothing new here.
Not that much hyperbole really. Games have long complained about Xbox excessive Ads about anything but games and the reduced visibility of the actual games.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/article/ads-up-games-down-the-ug…
I’m sure it’s profitable but so is porn.
If I have to sift through the ads to find the actual tile that launches my game, then yes, the thing has become unusable – *especially* because I pay for Xbox Live to begin with.
It’s people like you and Nelson that make scumbag companies shove this shit down our throats.
It is not unusable, you are grandstanding. This is dumb.
He might be exaggerating, but the point remains. With what you pay for a 360 and the games (especially new), you simply should not be required to look at ads. It shouldn’t be the user’s problem if Microsoft needs to make money back on a machine that was poorly conceived and overly-expensive to make from the beginning.
So you don’t use Firefox, Chrome or Opera then?
Not going to use a Chrome Book either?
Your Xbox is sold at a loss where they use revenues on games and ads to get the cost back.
I kinda agree with you but it easily turned off so it isn’t anything to get upset about.
What I do hate is companies like Oracle putting web toolbar crapware in the Java Development Toolkit installer.
Firefox, Chrome and Opera don’t have ads, they have a custom nicely looking search page that stays out of your way while giving money to the companies when you search.
Websites which run on Chrome have ads. Apps on Windows have ads.
The Bing AppEx team owns the Bing app, not Windows. You paid for Windows, not Bing.
And is Windows and Bing not both owned by Microsoft? Ergo, i’m paying for the privilege of viewing Microsofts crap apps
Think of it like this: Whilst you don’t mind being pelted by advertising from billboards when out on the road, you wouldn’t like it if there was a billboard directly in your front room, constantly on blaring adverts continuously.
(Which of course you do in fact have if you leave your TV on the shopping channel all the time…)
Edited 2013-07-06 11:12 UTC
Just like all of the ads make OSAlert unusable? Seriously Thom?
Edited 2013-07-05 18:20 UTC
Do you pay for OSAlert? Do you ever have trouble telling what’s an ad and what’s not?
No?
There you go.
I paid for Windows, which included IE, which let me access OSAlert.
Why am I seeing ads? (Hint: Same reason Bing has ads, they’re monetizing a free service)
I was wondering how long itd be until this hit OSAlert.
Bing (which augments search results, is optional, and can be switched off) displays advertisements which are highly relevant, and they aren’t even really ads, they are promoted results.
But that won’t stop people who wouldn’t even use Windows 8.1 in the first place from commenting on how it hampers usability, how they paid for the product, yada yada.
Oh come on. Promoted results *are* ads. They are highly relevant to the people who paid to have them promoted. If they were actually highly relevant, they wouldn’t need to be promoted.
Sometimes that happens in google, where the company I’m searching for has actually paid for an ad at the top and appears as the first result.
Google, Apple, and even microsoft have been trying to unify the desktop and web search for years, so it really isn’t anything new. But, as far as I know, no one I’ve ever met has really listed the unified search as a positive. Google’s old desktop search was also the source of quite a few terrible security vulnerabilities. Id’ rather keep them separate.
They may be ads in the strictest sense, but they don’t walk talk or act like advertisements. It isn’t like the Bing app is plastered with Viagra advertisements.
Its seamlessly integrated into the experience and highly relevant to the search query. I’m not sure why people have a problem. It might be that they don’t.
Have you (or Thom) gathered analytics on usage patterns in apps? If so what’s your sample size? Done any A/B testing with adverts? What were the results?
Since you and Thom seem to be speaking from authority, I’ll be interested in your insightful findings.
What is the basis of your claim that they are “highly relevant”? Microsoft’s press release?
If they are highly relevant, then the advertiser wasted their money as they would be returned in the results anyways.
It seems to be like the advertisement companies ( MS & google) are either preying upon companies fear that other non relevant ads might show up first for products and services that they are more relevant for, or a tacit admittance that their search algorithm sucks.
Promoted results and relevancy aren’t mutually exclusive attributes, and something can both be sponsored and relevant or unsponsored and relevant.
Highly relevant is relative to other ads for unrelated things plastered over the UI. This isn’t that.
What is MS paying all you shills?
They are very cheap, so it won’t be a lot. Then again all the stuff you and all the other defenders of this crap aren’t doing a good or convincing job.
Ads in an OS are a total no-go. Doesn’t matter if Canonical or MS do it.
If I got paid as often as idiots like you claim I did, id be on vacation a lot more often.
There are two possible positions on OSAlert. Agree with the hive mind or paid MS shill.
God forbid people think freely.
After seeing all of your insights as to what are and aren’t (really) ads, or what is fair game, perhaps you could avoid any dissenting opinions if you prefaced your comments with
“In my version of reality–“.
As it is, that you seem to be quite erudite in your formulation of opinion based on this altered reality to the point of being pedantic, delusional and utterly lacking in any core ethics or morality (a predator)seems to be your baseline reality.
And, Woe be unto anyone fool enough to trust you with ANYTHING!
So you comment to a thread you weren’t originally involved in and add nothing of value. I must say, you are quite eloquent, even poetic in your uselessness.
I have to agree with the parent poster. I haven’t replied to an OSAlert story in months(? Well, it has been a while…) because I usually either agree with the general consensus of the thread or simply because do not feel I can contribute much to the topic at hand but whenever I see a post of yours I cringe lately so I HAD to reply this one.
Almost half of the posts on this story so far are from you, trying to defend what is obviously yet another indefensible bone headed decision from MS.
Is there anything that MS does or will do that you will not defend as if people were threatening your mother? Geez!
In fact it kind of became something to expect here at OSAlert: as soon as something slighlty negative about MS comes up, there goes Nelson to the rescue!
You appear to be level headed when posting on anything that is not related to MS or one of its direct competitors (Android, sigh!) and one can even find insightful information about MS technologies or trends within your posts. You are clearly an experienced professional, possibly a MVP, and it shows. That’s probably where the shill accusations are coming from and that’s understandable. But boy is it hard to read the drivel you post in here sometimes…
Though he often gets downvoted seemingly “just because”… (for a recent example http://www.osnews.com/thread?566761 )
Is it just me or have advertisements being shoved in ones face become so ubiquitous that I don’t even notice them anymore. I blindly scroll past them, or my mind treats them as abstract lines of text or colors and refuses to see what they say or what they’re for. It’s like ad burnout. Moreover, in Firefox my trusty ad-blocker plugin cleanly erases them from most pages anyway. All that being said, I don’t understand why advertisers are still willing to pay big bucks for something that is becoming less and less effective or completely ineffective for me.
Could it be that it’s more effective than we realise? Personally, I also feel like I’m not affected by adverts. But in practice, I have to face reality. If I look at my purchasing habits, I don’t research everything I buy to the last minutiae. I’m surely missing out on some really fantastic products that I’ve never even heard about. Probably most of the products I buy are ones I heard about through advertising.
I’m not saying this is true for everyone, but I’m sure the companies wouldn’t pay over extended periods if the return didn’t justify it.
Speak for yourself, I don’t buy anything due to the advertisements, I block ads everywhere.
I never watch TV live so I edit out ads, furthermore I rarely watch the type of shows or movies that would have allot of product placement if any at all.
I only listen to music off my MP3 collection and only add music to it via recommendations from friends, artists that are on the tour bills as other artists I like or the artists that are listed as influential or are friends of artists I like when they are interviewed.
I have no idea who is popular or what manufactured by the label crap is current and haven’t for at least 15 years now. This has lead to my current top 5 bands being Giant Squid, Yamantaka//Sonic Titan, Meshuggah, Isis and Agalloch.
When it comes to consumer goods I’m part of the buy local movement and since I watch what I eat and try to avoid buying anything and everything that I can’t get that isn’t made at the very least in the US though for many things I don’t even look further then the tri-state area. I also have no shame at all in going to the dollar store for all kinds of things, it leaves tons of extra cash in the budget to fund my “drink a 6 pack or a bottle of every liquor or wine made in my state project”. I drink almost every day and I’ve barely made a dent in the ocean of alcohol that is Wisconsin lol.
For items where there is no other option like electronics, all of which are made in asia I only buy what reviews well and is Linux compatible with the only bias being toward AMD hardware due to their OSS efforts and the facts that one CPU performance is already more then what I typically need and I knowhow much Intel would charge if AMD where to fold.
On top of this I also refuse to buy any hardware with iOS, WinRT, Android or CromeOS installed on it.
So you allow yourself to be influenced by possible ads via friends?
(and how do you know your top 5 so well; last.fm? ~ads there, too)
The term is banner blindness and it’s why UI designers are warned to never make anything important resemble an ad in shape or appearance.
Users build a mental model for quickly filtering the relevant from the irrelevant when looking for specific types of information.
The disconnect is so strong that, if a user is searching for a non-ad (eg. a navigation header) and it resembles an ad, they’ll often search multiple times without seeing it and may get frustrated and leave before they think to stop and force themselves to methodically examine every element on the page.
It’s why advertisers are so in favour of ads like delay-locked interstitials that force you to watch them.
Edited 2013-07-05 17:59 UTC
I have mute button in my laptop just for that.
Yeah, i’m like that too. My biggest complaint is not about the ads themselves, although they ARE getting a bit annoying, but that since most advertising outfits can’t keep their shit together the ads slow down page load time something fiercely sometimes. This is especially true if you’re on something like mobile broadband.
So the fact that Windows Smart Seach indexes your personal files and that Bing now has access to it doesn’t bother you at all? You don’t wonder what information may be leaking out of your system? If not you have not been paying attention to the news recently. And the often used excuse that since “others do it, its ok” really doesn’t mean crap. The real question is: “Does disabling it really turn it off?”
This isn’t how it works. Bing has access to queries you provide it.
Metro Applications are forbidden from widespread file system access.
The indexed files and the Bing results come from separate sources, consolidated into one view.
Actually. you are missing the point. The things I search local files for can be just as sensitive as the contents in the files themselves. If I am searching for “AIDS treatment” for instance, it might be that I am writing a paper for my physiology class, or it might be that I have AIDS. I sure don’t want anyone else inferring that I might have AIDS from my search data though. Especially someone like my health insurance company. If you think about it, the contents of your files are the only thing you are actually going to search for. So every time you search, you give away a little bit of your privacy.
That’s not what you said though, you said that Bing has access to the indexes and data on your computer, something which is patently false.
M$ is losing on all fronts because of silly decisions like this. If they want market share now they need to quit with these policies.
That’s a funny comment to make considering the success of Windows 8 so far (with over 100 million licenses sold), and the impending success of Xbox One. Not to mention the massive government and military contracts they have. Microsoft losing on all fronts? ….No, not even close.
How many of those licenses are sitting on a shelf at a oem supplier? And should we not see the xbox one actually selling before calling it a success? I am quite sure some people called wp an “impending success” before launch. And besides nelson i doubt you find many who sees wp as a success.
It doesn’t matter how many licenses are sitting on a shelf because whether or not all of them are in use has nothing to do with the fact Microsoft sold them and already made their money. You think the makers of my cars care if they’re on the highway every day or parked in my garage? Nope, the only thing that matters were the sales.
I’ll give you that my calling the Xbox One an “impending success” was a prediction rather than a factual statement. However, there are a number of indicators that point that way so while nothing is certain, it’s unlikely the console will flop.
I have to disagree with you on this one. If i had a company producing windows apps i would not put my money on windows selling much because ms says so. I would look at the amount of users actually using it.
I don’t think it will flop. But i doubt it will as great as the 360 sales are. I do not know anyone but one ms fanboy who might be buying a xbox one. And we are a shitload of people who had both the original xbox and the 360.
The problem is we’re not talking about some other company and Windows apps. Microsoft as an os provider doesn’t have the same considerations that a 3rd party developer does. Also, it’s not as if the 100+ million Windows 8 licenses that have been sold are actually sitting there collecting dust. The truth is a lot of people are using Windows 8. For anyone to deny that (not that you have) would be completely stupid.
I couldn’t guess how many units it will sell, I just believe it will be successful. I do know a handful of people who are going to buy an Xbox One. I haven’t decided myself yet. I’m not in the habit of buying first generation anyways so unless a few truly amazing (imo) games come out and I can’t wait, I’ll just watch how the first year plays out. I still have plenty of stuff to play on the 360.
Seeing how ms is trying to make it self a sw and hw maker should tell a great deal. Ms were late to the smartphone marked which showed people that they can do without a ms product and they havent been able to use the defacto monopoly on the desktop to futher use of their wp platform. The >5% they are on with wp shows what they can do without a monopoly.
Thats why i would not be surpriced to see companies startng to look other ways then windows.
I would not buy a first edition of most products either. And sofar our kids are pleased with the 360. If we are gonna change it i think it would be for a ps4. I am in the process of removing all ms products from our house. They are becoming more of a bad match going forward.