Bing Bans 'Computer Support' Ads From Its Network (mspoweruser.com) 84
An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft has changed the terms of service for its Bing Ad network to disallow ads which offer computer support service. Its Bing Ads User Safety Policy now reads: Bing Ads disallows the promotion of third party online technical support services to consumers because of serious quality issues that can impact end user safety. These ads mislead users, tricking them to believe that their PC is infected. This is clearly a move to block scammers from making victims of Bing users, but any and all third party tech support ads will be blocked, including, perhaps legitimate ones.
Easier way (Score:2, Funny)
Wouldn't it just be easier to ban Windows users from Bing? Solves several problems at once. :)
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My mother called Microsoft and they tried to sell her a support. She got me on a conference call with him after she had already been on the call for quite a while. I actually listened to him until I realized he was blatantly lying to her to sell her some bogus overpriced piece of shit support plan that would have never actually solved her problem. Microsoft doesn't want their ad business to hurt their shitty support business.
Re: Easier way (Score:5, Insightful)
2 years ago it was a joke.
Today it has become quite real. I mean, what is the definition of a malware infected computer? A computer that doesn't exclusively do what you want but is ultimately under the control of a third party whose motives you don't know but have to assume are against your interests...
Re: Easier way (Score:5, Insightful)
...and it's software that collects all sorts of data on you and from you and sends it back to who knows where. You apparently cannot stop it and it can "upgrade" or alter itself at will without your permission (and sometimes explicitly against your permission).
Windows fully meets the definition of malware. Not a joke.
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No worries - I get calls at home from the nice guys at Windows Support all the time, whats the point of having them on Bing?
Re:monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm all for blocking the scams, but how rampant is that, really?
Is this your first day on the Internet?
Re:monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
Nah, just someone who uses adblockers.
I'm always aghast when I look at the internet on a non-adblocked computer. The impact of having adblockers and tools like privacy badger is easy to forget until you don't have them.
Re:monopoly (Score:4, Insightful)
It's kinda interesting. Even when MS is doing something that looks user-oriented and customer-friendly on the outside one can't help but wonder how they're trying to screw someone.
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That's called bias and probably some form of neurosis.
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No - it's called experience..
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If an ad says nothing about the current condition of the reader's computer, I see no legitimate reason to block it.
MS risks getting into anti-trust legal problems again for blocking other IT co's. Perhaps they are willing to take that gamble in court now that they could argue mobile OS's are encroaching on Windows sales.
Re: monopoly (Score:2, Insightful)
Are you just conviently ignoring the fact that 99% of those tech support ads online are scammers?
It's so bad there are dozens of YouTube channels dedicated to wasting the scammer's time.
These scammers will say anything is a virus or hackers. Like they will tell people to run netstat and say these connections are all hackers. Or they will have them open msconfig and say "see, not all your services are running...you need to pay us $500."
Then if you do pay, they delete everything or run syskey and try to make
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So is MS. They are just a bit more gradual in their screwification.
But a lot of their Bing traffic is due to their near-monopoly on x86 desktops & laptops. It has potential anti-trust (anti-competitive) implications.
WARNING!!! (Score:2)
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It's hard to say without knowing what the specific limits are.
Would an advertisement for an anti-malware product run afoul of this new policy, given that the ad is straightforward and not waving an alarmist "Your PC is infected" message at the user? technically that's not an ad for support, per se, but an actual software product.
I can also understand the existence of "legitimate" third party tech support services, but I'm not sure how many use cases there are for such a service to be advertising itself via
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I'm not sure how many use cases there are for such a service to be advertising itself via a search engine.
Some dumb user types a complete sentence into Bing - "Somebody please fix my computer."
A legitimate computer shop could advertise on the keywords "fix my computer" and display an add, where their organic search placement might be low for those terms.
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I'm all for blocking the scams, but how rampant is that, really?
Seriously, it's rampant. I get calls every week and so do a lot of people I know.
Count yourself as lucky if you haven't gotten on their list yet.
They have fully-staffed, pro-level call centers that work 24/7 calling people. I know a lot of legit businesses that don't have that level of "support".
Re:Your idiotic comment. (Score:4)
Incorrect. In the US, our right to be an asshole is protected by the Constitution. Unlike other countries, we don't need some cobbled together justification to be dicks to other people, we embedded it into our cultural DNA. That's true freedom.
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In fact, the USA is such a great country that an asshole can grow up to be President.
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Except that methane is odorless.
There are several chemicals that contribute to the smell of farts:
- skatole (by-product of meat digestion)
- indole (by-product of meat digestion)
- methanethiol (a sulfur compound)
- dimethyl sulfide (a sulfur compound)
- hydrogen sulfide (rotten egg odor, flammable)
- volatile amines
- short chain fatty acids
- feces (if present in the rectum)
- bacteria
Source [about.com]
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To be fair, they said "methane burst" and not simply "methane", which could be defined to include your list.
When I call the gas company up, I say I smell gas. I don't say "I smell leak-detection odorant."
In Microsoft's support . . . (Score:1)
Re:In Microsoft's support . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
"Computer support" scams are so common these days. I am glad that someone is doing something about curbing them.
They pretty on the computer illiterate and at best part you from your money for no reason. At worst they install whatever the hell they want while they are providing remote "support".
It's nice to see a company say no to revenue in order to help their users.
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But banning ALL ads? Even for legitimate services? Like say if you're already infected by a scammer and you need help. This is a lazy measure with a real impact on legitimate businesses.
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Its my understanding that it is just the ads they aren't allowing. If you specifically search for a computer repair service I'm sure you will still get hits.
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But if you offer a service and wanted to increase your exposure, you still can't buy placement.
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Yeah, and if your doctor sends you an email that your prescription for Viagra is ready to be picked up, you probably aren't going to get that either. I'm OK with that.
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Scammers don't actually infect you
I've seen persistent adware trying to get you to call their #. Very likely could have come from clicking a sacammer ad.
There's also the tricks for making a persistent browser tab that a typical user doesn't know how to get rid of, even after restarting their computer.
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Chrome cleared up the unclosable browser tab a few years back, with the failsafe check box to prevent the tab from opening any more windows.
A few weeks back someone found a way around that. I haven't stumbled across it again.
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Yeah...but IE and Firefox both still have it. I see it more on IE than anything else.
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Scammers don't actually infect you, other than possibly with panic.
Ummm, yeah, they do. They either get you to go to a site that infects you or they con you into loading a "Remote Service" app that lets them infect you.
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You're quoting the general policy, not the new policy:
Bing Ads disallows the promotion of third party online technical support services to consumers
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"Computer support" scams are so common these days. I am glad that someone is doing something about curbing them.
There was a 5-car pileup on the highway yesterday, THIS IS WHY WE NEED TO TAKE AWAY ALL THE CARS and legally ban them!!!
Someone picked up a candy bar at the store the other day, but it had nuts in it, and they're allergic to nuts, and they died, because a "CONTAINS NUTS" warning was simply not enough, and they simply ate them anyways, THIS IS WHY WE NEED TO TAKE AWAY ALL THE CANDYBARS AND
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How about we just take away *your* recreational drugs.
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At worst they install whatever the hell they want while they are providing remote "support".
Seriously, who the hell do these Sun Microsystems people think they are, anyway.
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Microsoft apparently doesn't want Windows users deciding to use anybody but them to support their OS.
Microsoft does not provide support their OS for the majority of people using that. That's the OEM's job.
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Their product naming and slogans are so PHB, it's pitiful. "Power Point", "Excel", "Outlook", and applications are "solutions" in Visual Studio. I bet a product named "Microsoft Synergy" is on its way.
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There's a rant somewhere on The Register about MS trying to shift to Enterprise and throwing small customers under the bus in the process. Bigger PHB's with bigger wallets.
Make the OS seem better than it is also. (Score:2, Interesting)
This really isn't thaaaaat bad of a thing. (Score:2)
Blocking legitimate businesses (Score:1)
but any and all third party tech support ads will be blocked, including, perhaps legitimate ones.
I hope they sue Microsofts' asses off for restraint of trade and tortious interference with business relationships.
I understand setting "standards" on what can be contained in an Ad, and taking measures to squelch deceptive or misleading advertising that could be a safety issue; However, banning an entire legitimate industry from doing business is anticompetitive, and a ridiculous abuse of their Search-
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LOL, as if "legitimate computer support businesses" were a thing that actually existed. Shysters and con-artists, the lot of them!
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I don't know about you but the number of ads I have seen for legitimate 3rd party support or anti-virus for that matter is very tiny compared to the crap ware masquerading as those services.
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I hope they sue Microsofts' asses off for restraint of trade and tortious interference with business relationships.
I, too, learned some big words this week. I didn't feel compelled to strut them about incorrectly in public, though.
Back in the real world Microsoft isn't required to do business with anyone they don't want to, barring a short list of explicitly banned reasons for doing so. They certainly aren't a duopoly [statcounter.com] as they still have less than 5% of the search market.
Are you also against Google dropping ads from payday loans? Or was it from comments on that story that you learned words like "tortious interference", a
Microsoft Help Is All You Need. (Score:2)
selective content presentation (Score:2)
Weird. Yesterday there was a story about Google pulling ads for payday loan operations [slashdot.org] and today, this. The comments about the Google story ended up being mostly about the relative merits of the payday loan industry with a few about how this was Google suppressing its competition, although I don't know of any Google or Alphabet (I guess?) forays into consumer finance. The arguments that this is Microsoft protecting its business interests are more compelling here, because MS sells software and support servi
Censorship (Score:1)
Isn't this just censorship? Banning ads that are misleading or otherwise harmful would be fine. Banning all ads for any company in a certain industry seems a bit draconian, particulary when M$oft sells services in those same fields.
Maybe a better solution would be to fix Windows, so somebody doesn't compromise their machine by inadvertantly clicking on a link that could do harm. We are on the verge of having cars smart enough to drive themselves. Surely AI has come far enough to determine that what you a
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There are effective levels of compromise that can be done here.
For starters, A power-users set of options may be turned on, after viewing a scare page.
Something along the lines of:
"If you are reaching this site at the direction of a technical support rep claiming to work for Microsoft, Close this window now and hang up. Microsoft support will NEVER tell you to change ANY options in this control pannel. By setting the options in this control pannel, you acknowledge that you are taking personal responsibilit
Wrong focus... (Score:1)
Also-ran (Score:2)
One scam per customer (Score:2)
If someone is using Bing for search, they've already been scammed once.