Ladies and gentlemen, another round is more in the titanic clash between Mountain View and Redmond. The market for Internet search remains a very sensitive issue, and in his last term, Microsoft has launched the "Scroogled" seeking to expose you some details about the presentation of results in Google Shopping service. With Black Friday over, purchases through the Web come to another dimension with the arrival of the Christmas season, and from the perspective of Microsoft, its Bing search engine delivers results "more honest" compared to the competition.
I well remember a line from the movie "Antitrust", 2001. Tim Robbins's character mentions that when you're on top, people attack the quality of the product. Departing and returning from fiction to reality, we find Google under media pressure in Europe and Latin America, while the Federal Trade Commission is considering making a claim against the Mountain View giant. Meanwhile, who reminds us that it is still at war with Google is Microsoft, through its recent campaign "Scroogled". The term "Scroogled" is no more than a corruption of the English word for "j * Dido", but the advance of Microsoft goes one step further.
Microsoft's complaint alleges that when searching for products on Google Product Search, the user does not receive the results "more relevant", but actually receives first ads that have been paid, getting priority. Technically, Microsoft is right, because Google Shopping recently adopted a scheme known as "pay-to-play". This works for now only in the United States, but will expand to other countries in 2013. However, as I have found other specialized portals, Bing does exactly the same. In addition, the video makes the mistake of saying that the results are for "the highest bidder". The results are sold, but no bid involved.
Another spark that draws attention, another brush to take into account and keep anecdotally. It is not the first time Microsoft comes to crossing Google, and definitely not the last. This new campaign reminds us to "G-Mailman", another invention of Microsoft, although at that time it was under attack was the Google Mail service. Personally I think it is an appropriate time (despite it's proximity to Christmas) so that Redmond enter into this kind of duels. And while Bing has about 16 percent of searches on American soil (which is primarily directed this campaign), the overall numbers clearly indicate that Bing should have other priorities before impact advertising. Moreover, the "pay for performance" is another variant of product placement, and it is not necessary to mention what we saw in series like "Hawaii 5-0" or movies like "The Amazing Spider-Man" ... Right?
