Bing Cashback Can Cost You Money 333
paltemalte writes "Microsoft and various retailers have teamed up to bring you cashback on purchases made via Bing's price comparison feature. There is a little snag, though — it seems that when you have a Bing cookie living in your browser, some retailers will quote you a higher price than if you come with no Bing cookie in your system."
"Is this legal" is the wrong question (Score:5, Insightful)
The right one is "Will people finding out cost more than lawsuits if it isn't legal". If the answer is yes, don't do it, if no then go on ahead.
Instead of complaining, game the system. (Score:5, Insightful)
Find out what sites go higher and what sites go lower in quoted prices. Fake a cookie to maximize savings or delete it altogether if it gets you a uniformly higher price.
That's the behavior I'd expect from /. . None of this Newsweek / Dateline NBC alarmist "They're using COMPUTER MACHINES to scam us!!!" Get on it, people.
Come on, it's obviously the store that's shady (Score:5, Insightful)
This has nothing to do with Microsoft. From the article: Butterfly Photo set a three month cookie on my computer to indicate that I came from Bing.
So, a disreputable web site is setting a cookie when you click on a sales link. How is this Microsoft's fault again? What does this have to do with Bing?
A/V and photography stores are notorious for ripping off customers, both in-store and on-line. Surprise surprise, you can find these disreputable sites using search engines. Trying to blame this on Bing is like trying to blame your phone book for recommending a sketchy car mechanic.
Re:The first thing that came to mind... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Doesn't work for me (Score:4, Insightful)
Same here, I get the lower price with or without cookies. Seeing as the article was written by a Bing competitor it's a way for them to get exposure.
* Step 1: Write article saying M$ is evil /.
* Step 2: Submit story to
* Step 3: Profit!
Doesn't matter if it's true or not
Re:Credit Cards? (Score:0, Insightful)
gypped? Ah, you couldn't close escrow and just use the term "jewed" ?
Re:Instead of complaining, game the system. (Score:2, Insightful)
Find out what sites go higher and what sites go lower in quoted prices. Fake a cookie to maximize savings or delete it altogether if it gets you a uniformly higher price.
That's the behavior I'd expect from /. . None of this Newsweek / Dateline NBC alarmist "They're using COMPUTER MACHINES to scam us!!!" Get on it, people.
Bing cashback developer goes into boss' office tomorrow:
You know boss, I've been doing this analysis of our system, and I've figured out a way to game the system.
Boss: "Good work coder Dude! For that, you won't get axed this month!"
I would think that MS developers may occasionally read this site.
So basically it's that old "I'm taking 10% off"? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"Is this legal" is the wrong question (Score:5, Insightful)
The right one is "Will people finding out cost more than lawsuits if it isn't legal". If the answer is yes, don't do it, if no then go on ahead.
Since when is simple price discrimination illegal?
It isn't like the website is charging you more based on any legally recognized actionable causes.
Re:soo... (Score:3, Insightful)
Did anyone else notice the story submitter's alias links to a sex toy shopping site?
If that's what makes him happy.
Maybe he doesn't know that all subby links are tagged rel="nofollow"
Re:Hehe (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Instead of complaining, game the system. (Score:1, Insightful)
Not just that but the site is unnecessarily fearmongering:
The problem doesn’t end there. Using Bing has tainted my web browser. Butterfly Photo set a three month cookie on my computer to indicate that I came from Bing. Any product I look at for the next three months may show a different price than I’d get by going there directly. Just clicking a Bing link means three months of potentially negative cashback, without me ever realizing it. I’m actually afraid to use their service even just to write this, because it may cost me money in the future.
(Emphasis mine.) It's as if he's saying his computer is totally tainted now. Why doesn't he just follow his own advice from step 4?
Step 4: Open a different web browser or clear your cookies from butterflyphoto.com in your current one. Go directly to their site and check the price. $699!
There! He knows that clearing his cookies solves the problem. Why all this bullshit about being tainted for three months and being afraid to use their service to write a bloody blog post? Does he think the "oh noes teh bing cookeez" are going to trash his blog and kill his hamster too?
Re:"Is this legal" is the wrong question (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, what's illegal is deceptive business practices.
They claim to be offering a cash back if you utilize Bing, which implies a discount, where in fact, they are charging a higher price upfront to Bing users and creating a deceptive impression that the cash back is providing a discount of their normal price.
Good luck with that (Score:4, Insightful)
The US Department of Justice can't even successfully hit them with an antitrust suit. Microsoft settled, and then laughed off the settlement. Or else we'd have those APIs at the very least, wouldn't we? [wikipedia.org]
Re:It is? (Score:5, Insightful)
After the search is where it gets better. The results pages on Bing are way better, and have even caused a stir at Google.
In what way? During the brief period I tried Bing, I was thoroughly unimpressed.
Giving me relevant results is the ONLY thing I care about with a search engine. Bing didn't do as well as Google - end of story. If it had done as well as Google, I still wouldn't have cared - it'd have to provide better results for me to even care.
Re:Credit Cards? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:It is? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Instead of complaining, game the system. (Score:4, Insightful)
There! He knows that clearing his cookies solves the problem. Why all this bullshit about being tainted for three months and being afraid to use their service to write a bloody blog post? Does he think the "oh noes teh bing cookeez" are going to trash his blog and kill his hamster too?
He knows, but most people have no idea what cookies are, much less how to "clear" them. So, after reading the article, now you know how most people are getting screwed by some vendors claiming they are getting the customers a discount going through Bing when in fact it could be costing them money.
Also, now that you know, and if you would consider getting Bing cashback at some point in the future, you'd be likely to check if the vendor was charging you more just because you arrived from Bing.
Does everything have to be spelled out for you?
Re:It is? (Score:5, Insightful)
Rule of thumb:
All great things are simple, but not every simple thing is great.
Re:That's for the fake transactions exploit. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the whole of humanity, not just "your country" (which I assume is the US if you automatically assume that he's from the same country as you).
You are perpetuating things by still thinking of things in terms of "sides". "Same side" (whatever that may refer to, presumably you mean "being American vs everything that is not American") or not.
I agree that that way of thinking is stupid and blinkered though.
Re:It is? (Score:2, Insightful)
Lets say you've just spend the whole day calling your ISP that you will pay the bills, just let me back online because you have a World of Warcraft raid coming later at night. You're exhausted and hungry. You cant even Skype your pizza delivery guy because your internet is down. You have to walk upstairs to call from your moms phone. You're thinking about what kind of pizza to order. Now in your case you would order only the pizza bottom. It's simple and plain with no fancy extras, you say. But I like the toppings on my pizza. Ham, pineapple slices, shrimp, salami and BBQ sauce on a pizza taste great. As a pan pizza, please. With a large mountain dew! And some chocolate ice cream as dessert.
The point here being, by mixing things together to produce the final results can sometimes, and even often, be better than just listing the plain results. This is why we don't just do a SQL query and read the results from terminal. Or at least normal people don't. Google's more plain output might be nicer for ultimate geeks, but that isn't the internet anymore.
About the message that got taken down (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It is? (Score:2, Insightful)
Because websites that do that shit disable caching.
Re:It is? (Score:2, Insightful)
If bing was indeed better, it will rise to the top, and now those sites (and as an EE, i absolutely know the pain in the ass sites you're talking about) will start to come up on bing, and we'll be no better off. Unless you're seriously suggesting that a few MS employees that created bing are better at conducting searches than mother google....
Re:It is? (Score:4, Insightful)
Me too, but they can learn if they want to. And competition can only be good for the search engine market,
Presumably, competition is usually good.
assuming it happens on a decent level.
Ah, sorry, that's where your theory fails.
Re:Hehe (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It is? (Score:3, Insightful)
It tricked me, and I clicked on one. That is reprehensible behavior, and not the kind of thing I'd expect from a large multinational corporation.
Tired meme, or +1 funny? I choose...
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