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Microsoft The Internet

MSN Launches Pay-Per-Click Search Ads 108

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the jump-on-the-bandwagon dept.
San writes "ZDNet is reporting that MSN has launched its first paid-search advertising application. The system will first be launched in Singapore and will be followed by France in September and a pilot run in the United States in October."
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MSN Launches Pay-Per-Click Search Ads More

MSN Launches Pay-Per-Click Search Ads

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  • Um..... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ericdano ( 113424 )
    Um....Why? Isn't this form of ads pretty much dead? I mean, the last time I clicked on a Slashdot ad was.....never!
    • ... not dead, no. Pay-per-click pretty much makes up all of Google's revenue stream today.
      • ... not dead, no. Pay-per-click pretty much makes up all of Google's revenue stream today.

        Not only Google's revenue stream, but the vast bulk of quazi-commercial websites out there (e.g. a large number of the sites linked to by Slashdot).

        Google brought advertising to the low-end with Adsense, which is a performance based ad system (e.g. pay per click rather than impression). Prior to Adsense, most low-end sites were trying to recoup hosting fees with affiliate links with sites like Amazon (which led to som
        • Prior to Adsense, most low-end sites were trying to recoup hosting fees with affiliate links with sites like Amazon (which led to some whoring conflicts of interest).

          6 of 1, half a dozen of the other. I don't see any difference. The grandparent was right (about clicking on ads). The last time I clicked on a google ad was ... when I ended up on a highly ranked,link-farm, circle-jerk web site (void of any actual content) and didn't realize it was even an ad.

          I have a legitimate site with google ads, but

    • Re:Um..... (Score:5, Funny)

      by the_mighty_$ ( 726261 ) on Saturday September 03, 2005 @10:39PM (#13474012)

      Isn't this form of ads pretty much dead?

      Netcraft confirms it, pay per click is NOT dead. [netcraft.com]

      From the page: "Domain Pay-Per-Click Services Growing Rapidly"

    • Re:Um..... (Score:4, Informative)

      by robdavy ( 850571 ) on Saturday September 03, 2005 @10:51PM (#13474057) Homepage
      Yeh, dead..... Google only made like a billion dollars from it last year...

    • Re:Um..... (Score:2, Funny)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )
      You lazy bugger.

      With out failure when ever there is a microsoft add on slashdot "open in new tab" immediately goes into action, not that I ever read them, I just want to assist microsoft in the sponsoring of my favorite open source leaning web sites.

  • Invasion of privacy. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Tontoman ( 737489 ) * on Saturday September 03, 2005 @10:32PM (#13473986)
    This sound like a unpleasant invasion of privacy.
    According to http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstech nology/2002210022_microsoftads17.html/ [nwsource.com]news article from the Seattle Times,
    "AdCenter uses information from customers who registered for services such as Hotmail or who tailored the MSN home page to their interests. It supplements that with data purchased from the Experian credit bureau."

    • Re:Invasion of privacy. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Tontoman ( 737489 ) * on Saturday September 03, 2005 @10:44PM (#13474034)
      The link seems to lead to a registration page when referrer is Slashdot. Sorry. Here is a link to an interesting blog entry where I originally found the link to the Seattle Times article: http://www.corante.com/mooreslore/archives/2005/03 /17/microsoft_adcenter_ignores_90s_lessons.php/ [corante.com]
      • Interesting blog entry although the author misses the point. The demographic that most advertisers are interested in are not watching television nor are they reading publications. Pure and simple truth which is why we now have /. articles on advertisements in online games!

        Despite all this, I'm very, very glad that I'm totally paranoid and don't allow any information to be transmitted from my computer, or to my computer, except for basice HTML, IP address, date and time, unless I lift restrictions here.

    • Re:Invasion of privacy. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by oh_bugger ( 906574 ) on Saturday September 03, 2005 @10:54PM (#13474067)
      If you don't want MSN to have your data, don't give MSN your data. Average Joe User may fuel MSN's userbase allowing them to continue this approach to advertising, but for the informed it's very easy to just avoid these kinds of services.

      Everytime I hear that information about myself could and is sold, despite how common this is, frustrates me. it may not be feasible for all but I try to live without attaching myself to many things, such as random subscriptions (check this box to receive mail), credit card(s), intrusive website registrations. Even the link you provided to the seattle times wanted me to register, thank god for bugmenot. Again, it may not be feasible to take every step, but if people were to refuse to allow their information to be used for monetary gain then companies would stop and find another more cost effective way to increase profits at the expense of the little man's personal privacy/rights. [end rant]

      • Indeed. An "advertising application that offers advertisers information on searchers and their search activity, and the frequency at which keywords have been accessed." has little appeal for an informed Joe Consumer.

        I use a combination of hosts file blacklisting, the excellent adblock/flashblock extensions to Firefox and link my cookies file to /dev/null, and that seems to work pretty well for me, in that I see very little advertising that I don't want to. When I use anybody else's computers, I tend to find

      • it may not be feasible for all but I try to live without attaching myself to many things,

        Heed well, young 'uns, poster speaks Heap Big Wisdom.

    • Re:Invasion of privacy. (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The system will first be launched in Singapore

      A good testbed for this.

      Some years ago my company was working on electronic payments, and some of our work involved some Singapore banks. When some of my people objected to the privacy implications of the proposals favored by the Singaporese, one reply was, "You Americans! You're always so concerned about privacy!"

      We'll see what ends up deployed here and in Europe.

    • People said google ads were invasion of privacy (Score:5, Interesting)

      by tod_miller ( 792541 ) on Sunday September 04, 2005 @03:24AM (#13475146) Journal
      Adsense and their gmail ads. Still only if you have your google cookie set.

      However this microsoft ploy is what one reader 'predicted', if microsoft offer a 'killer' ad program (lets face it, it isn't a sodding technical marvel) with extra data and sod, and then basically give all the money to the people who operate it (read cheap advertising and high payouts) then they will crush google.

      Except they will have to imitate google, and perhaps their arrogance (using credit data) has gone against them.

      I for one don't block adsense frames, because I find it interesting to see who can get ads on certain pages.

      That is how unobstrusive it is. I choose what I watch, and sod the advertisers, I would rather a cheap and nasty ad free internet than a cheap and nasty adfull internet (which we have now).

      I will adblock any flash or video ads that encumber my screen, and no visit websites that have 'interval' ign style ads. 'skip this ad'

      'Microsoft' have no class, is a statement being passed around by in the hyperswill - and I think this offering, timely after the whole 'I will bury google' release, will show that despite a mountain of cash, they will not be able to topple google.

      Internet has shown that inertia is enough of a force with people to let even shit sites (ebay) win through. Google have been pushing for this, and probably on day 1 they knew this would happen, and worked out their game plan.

      Microsoft are such lazy uncoordinated bastards, they sit and wait too much, with worked in googles favour.

      They are spending all their time on faux blog sites, shitty 'Microsoft are cute and fun' reaching out to developers and crap. Please develop for our platform only, tie in etc.

      Now most download sites and 'open' downloads are for linux, 3 years ago it was windows software, and someone please bring it to linux, and now it is 'Windows Version - someone managed to get this to compile, it is 3 versions old, but good luck'.

      File in Java (which Microsoft had a game planon how to trash - and failed) and you see where this is going.

      One final point fo rpeople who say Microsoft don't innovate:

      According to Eva Balan, MSN's international marketing manager for MSN adCenter, advertisers pay a one-time subscription fee of S$5 (US$3) for MSN Keywords. For each keyword, they bid a minimum of S$0.10 and pay for the number of times search users click on their advertisements, which appear as sponsored links alongside search results. The placement of the links will depend on the bid price, click-through rate as well as the types of user profiles captured by the system. [why is this bold not italic? I hate reading italic on screen] ...you are right they are not innovative! Grounds for a google counter sue for their advertising style? pteesh.

      To confirm you're not a script,
      please type the word in this image: recast

      random letters - if you are visually impaired, please email us at pater@slashdot.org
      • On a few sites, I've been forced to block ads. Not because I don't like them, not because the javascript tags add the "interval" ads, but because they horribly slow down the page render! There are times when my browser has the rest of the content but can't render because it's "Waiting for servedby.advertising.com" or some other ad server. Blocking the ads renders the page quickly.
    • This was predicted long ago in one of Joel's most popular essays. Joel Spolsky used to work in Microsoft and he foresaw the exploitation of cookie and information swap:

      http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog00000000 47.html [joelonsoftware.com]

      [snip]

      ...One day, Expedia could start offering higher fares to customers who have more than a million dollars in their Investor stock portfolio. There's not really anything technically impossible about this, and it's probably legal, too... ...The scary thing is that if you us
    • Just like google reads your Gmail and knows what you search for...

  • On time for once (Score:5, Funny)

    by the_mighty_$ ( 726261 ) on Saturday September 03, 2005 @10:35PM (#13474005)

    They announced [directmag.com] this in March and said that it would begin testing phase "within six months." For you math whizzes out there, that means they finally released a project on time!

  • ...And then, they wonder... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Pig Hogger ( 10379 ) <(moc.liamg) (ta) (reggoh.gip)> on Saturday September 03, 2005 @10:38PM (#13474010) Journal
    FTFA:
    According to Eva Balan, MSN's international marketing manager for MSN adCenter, advertisers pay a one-time subscription fee of S$5 (US$3) for MSN Keywords. For each keyword, they bid a minimum of S$0.10 and pay for the number of times search users click on their advertisements, which appear as sponsored links alongside search results. The placement of the links will depend on the bid price, click-through rate as well as the types of user profiles captured by the system.
    ...And then, they wonder why Google is more popular...

    Do marketing executive brains are in the same universe???

  • AdWords clone, but potential privacy issues? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sv-Manowar ( 772313 ) on Saturday September 03, 2005 @10:39PM (#13474013) Homepage Journal
    At first glance, this would appear to be a direct copy of Google's AdWords style keyword bidding on search result pages. However, whats more suspicious is how information on search users is being used to target the ads. If they choose to mine the profile data available to them through MSN passport (and this seems to be in line with their intentions, given that age and gender are already available to advertisers), Microsoft could try to exploit people's personal information to gain a targetting advantage over Google (at the expense of user's privacy..)
    • Except that passports aren't necessary in order to use the MSN web search, only the usual registration services (web mail, etc). And Google could very well do the exact same thing with gmail accounts. You know what I say? They recognize that google has done a clever thing, and have copied them while throwing their own, innocuous twist on things. That's it. That's what MS has done for 20 years (albeit, not always innocuously).

      • Re:AdWords clone, but potential privacy issues? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by spisska ( 796395 ) on Saturday September 03, 2005 @11:51PM (#13474254)

        And Google could very well do the exact same thing with gmail accounts.

        Google cannot do the same thing, since they do not collect this kind of information when you sign up for gmail. It's been a while since I got my gmail account, but I don't recall having to give them a single piece of information that I didn't want to (as opposed to Hotmail, which requires entries for things like age, gender, physical location, etc.)

        If you took a good look at Hotmail user data (and nothing else) you'd probably be surprised how many 90+ year-old women in Albania are using the service. Google does not have this problem since they never intended any ridiculous implementation like MSN Passport.

        • Re:AdWords clone, but potential privacy issues? (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Google's GMail just looks at your email message instead and displays targetted ads that way. Somehow I don't consider it to be apples and oranges like you're suggesting...

          • Look, in the case of MSN they can tie every word of every email they get to the fact that you are male, live in a certain location, and so on and so forth (based on what you tell them in the profile). Furthermore they know something of other sites you frequent, if you use Passport to reach them. So for instance if I have the word "car" in an email I may get an ad for a particular brand of cleaner different than the one I normally purchase at a car-cleaning site I frequent that also uses Passport. I'm sur

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • It's not like they're selling your information to other parties

        So what happens when an advertiser specifies that they should only have their ads shown to, say, people in a certain age group? While Microsoft isn't selling that information per se, they are still leaking it when you click on the link.

        Anyway, if you're THAT concerned about privacy, you wouldn't have given them your information in the first place, hm?

        Well smart people who don't trust Microsoft wouldn't. But the average person wo

    • Correct me if I'm wrong but webmasters don't get paid for simple views right? Only clicks.

  • Do you remember? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Robbyboy ( 802040 ) <wukichra@charte[ ]et ['r.n' in gap]> on Saturday September 03, 2005 @11:19PM (#13474152)
    Do you remember when developers actually developed software? It boggles my mind that the borg of all things software would still be patronized given the minimal amount of independent thought that comes out of Redmond, WA people would just get fed up and embrace open source.

    Windows 98... "Look Johnny, long filenames" (Macintosh had been there, done that)

    M$IE7 Beta... "Look Johnny, Tabbed Browsers" (FireFox had been there, done that)

    MSN AdCenter... "Look Johnny, Pay per click advertising" (Google had been there, done that)

    What further amazes me is that anything M$ does is still news. Why are the masses constantly amazed by the fact that M$ does not have to form independent thoughts and simply hijack everyone elses. Why not take that black hole of thought hovering over Redmond and channel it into something useful.

    A Secure Microsoft Product "Look Johnny, A Secure M$ Product...Make a Wish"

    • I'm not sure about long filenames, but Firefox wasn't the first to have tabs, and Google wasn't the first to have pay-per-click advertising.

      Most of Google's products were bought from other companies, just like Microsoft does. Picasa, Hello, Earth, Blogger...

    • Re:Do you remember? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ScentCone ( 795499 ) on Saturday September 03, 2005 @11:55PM (#13474264)
      It boggles my mind that the borg of all things software would still be patronized given the minimal amount of independent thought that comes out of Redmond, WA people would just get fed up and embrace open source.

      So, when Google copies Yahoo, or Google copies MapQuest - and then makes their versions of things, whether improved or not - they don't deserve the same scorn? Or when a Linux distro goes to a lot of trouble to provide users with an interface shockingly similar to Windows, that's innovation? Not every new service has to be a brand spanking new innovation. Otherwise we wouldn't have multiple car manufacturers, musicians, architectural jobs, or any other overlapping producers.

      What further amazes me is that anything M$ does is still news

      Let's see - millions and millions of users, and a giant new marketplace for ads from both small and large businesses...? It's a shame you don't understand why that might be worth mentioning to an audience that deals, in one way or another, with some of those millions of people all over the world.
      • Not every new service has to be a brand spanking new innovation. Otherwise we wouldn't have multiple car manufacturers, musicians, architectural jobs, or any other overlapping producers.

        He's right, of course. You don't have to like Microsoft to understand this. Please, moderators, don't use your power to bash on people whose views don't align with yours. Use them to discourage ad hominem attacks and encourage intelligent discourse. If I had any mod points, I'd give ScentCone a +1 Insightful for what is

    • "Windows 98... "Look Johnny, long filenames" (Macintosh had been there, done that)"

      Although Apple's HFS+ supported 255 character filenames since 1998, the Finder and standard open/save dialogs did NOT until OS X in 2001, and until then, Mac OS only fully supported 31 character filenames.

      Windows has supported 255 character filenames since Windows 95.

      So, while Windows does add lame restrictions on allowed characters and even reserves certain names, it did allow and support longer filenames than Mac OS between
      • Actually, keep in mind that the long filenames under Win9x were extremely ugly hacks grafted on to the FAT filesystem. You could say they supported long filenames, but you're really stretching the meaning of the word "support". NTFS was the first "real" support for long filenames under Windows. In fairness, though, both of these examples ignore the fact that there was long filename support in HPFS back when OS/2 was a MS/IBM joint venture. IIRC (flip a coin), this was available well before Win95.
    • MS-BASIC... BASIC ported to 8080.
      MS-DOS... CP/M-86 with IBM patches.
      Xenix... Unix ported to 8086
      Windows... Oh, a GUI.
      Windows NT... VMS with a GUI

      The list goes on.

    • Ha ... DOS 3.1 for the Apple ][ (of all things) had 30 character filenames. I got my first Apple around 1978 or so, and got accustomed to using descriptive filenames. When I eventually "upgraded" to an IBM PC I remember being irritated with MS-DOS's 8.3 naming convention. I still am.
      • On the first machines I worked with (Burroughs B3700, which went out of production in 1976) the operating system (MCP) only allowed 6-character filenames, upper-case only please. After that, Honeywell's GCOS allowed (IIRC) 64-character filenames, and when I eventually got to play with PC-DOS, it was a bit of a shock to find myself stuck with the 8.3 convention.
        • Good old days and all that. Charles Moore, inventor of Forth, once commented that it would have been called "Fourth" (as in "fourth generation computers") but the system it was developed on only supported five character filenames.
  • Is it just me or do the countries chosen for the launch seem kind of strange. I mean France...
    • maybe there's some feeling that France isn't a big fan of Google (referring to the court case Google lost) and MS could step in here? i have no idea, they do seem rather odd picks.
      • This thread is old, nobody's gonna read this except maybe you (if you are warned at reply). Anyway...

        I think we (as in French people) hate MS as much as the next guy may him be American, Polish or Mexican. And no, we haven't anything against Google, we use Google just like everybody else... It's not because some French charged Google (afaik for "legally" good reasons, may I remind you that each country has its own laws?) that French people aren't big fans of Google.

        I know Slashdotters like France joke
        • Where is the insight when you just don't know what you're talking about? I don't have anything against you, but more against the stupid moderator who modded you up.

          hey no hard feelings. i don't know what i'm talking about. i was wondering about the choice of countries as the parent post was. i was just putting out there maybe there was an anti-google feeling? i said i didnt know...but yeah. thanks for clearing that up. good to know. (i'm not a France-hater btw)
    • I read the article but I still don't get what it means to launch something in a particular country if it's on the Web.
    • One of my favorite lines from Pirates of the Caribbean...

      "I take it you've never been to Singapore." -Captain Jack Sparrow.
    • Is it just me or do the countries chosen for the launch seem kind of strange. I mean France...

      Well, if Microsoft are gonna conquer anybody without firing a shot, I can't think of a better place to start...


      Um, was that out loud?
  • Doesn't this just epitomize them? Always one step behind!
  • With this move now Microsoft and Google have almost the same features. But i still hate Microsoft.. Ah!, you analyst didnt see that comin' bill did they?!
  • Hey, it could have been worse, the claria deal could have went through, and they could have gotten their spydata that way and unclassified claria from their antispyware app.

    What am I saying, what do I care, I don't use windows. ClamAV can handle the sendmail.

  • Now Yahoo! can sue Microsoft too! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Alascom ( 95042 ) on Saturday September 03, 2005 @11:40PM (#13474222)
    Yahoo! (Overture) holds intellectual property rights to pay-per-click and bidding systems that grant Web sites higher placement in search results.



    Google agreed to issue 2.7 million shares (~$250 million) of Class A common stock to Yahoo, based in Sunnyvale, Calif. In turn, Yahoo dropped its lawsuit against Google and issued a "fully paid, perpetual license" to Overture patents.



    I guess Microsoft thinks its open season on Yahoo! patents now... I hope Microsoft's legal team is ready to open the checkbook as I doubt the two Standford search engines (Yahoo and Google) will allow Microsoft to get in on the action for free!

    • The patent involves bidding for the highest position. If MS doesn't get into the bidding thing, they might escape the Yahoo patent. Would they actually come with something even better? :-)

      It's Stanford, not Standford.

  • Imitation of Google? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Saturday September 03, 2005 @11:52PM (#13474257) Journal
    MS is scared to death over google.

    My guess is they are trying to take over their market or they will use monopolistic pressures to "cut off Google's air supply". Certainly that scenario is a classic Microsoft tactic.

    Especially after reading yesterday's news about Balmer throwing a chair because someone left to join google. That is just scary.
    • Just what has Microsoft built from scratch? I can't think of a single application they've released that hasn't been a knock-off from something else. Excel, first released for the Mac (!) was VisiCalc. I remember looking at Excel on the Mac - it did less than the $40 Word Processor/ Spreadsheet suite I had for my Commodore 64 in college. Flight Simulator was BAO's before MS bought it. Visio. Seriously - has Microsoft produced anything that hasn't been done before?
    • MS is scared to death over google.

      It's not that Microsoft is scared of Google, but rather what Google represents. Microsoft has never quite figured out a business model that they liked for delivering service over the Internet, and they have clung to their shrink-wrapped product mentality. It's why they don't like Linux. It's why they don't like Google. It's why they don't like iTunes. And the problem is that unlike the OS/boxed-product-software business, they can't control the delivery channel. In

    • Especially after reading yesterday's news about Balmer throwing a chair because someone left to join google. That is just scary.

      I'd die if I saw that on video. Torrent, anyone?
    • Yea, because competition == "monopolistic pressures".

  • Pathetic (Score:3, Insightful)

    by klept ( 895849 ) on Sunday September 04, 2005 @12:10AM (#13474314)
    "Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we can not resembel"- Dr. Samual Johnson
  • And why would I want to use it?

    I want real reasons and none of that "better experience" crap. Stuff such as "Better Payouts", "less ads about spyware", "better optimized displaying technique" or any feature that would allow more liberty (Read AdSense's TOS carefully, you'll see what I mean)

    And finnaly, I would want a username that goes by the name of "MSNGuy" to reply to this! .... What? Google has it already!
  • Wouldn't someone have to use M$ search?

    My start up page, at home or work, Windows or Linux, is always Google. On Firefox.
    • Now, I think that is a very good point. I spend $200 a month on Google ads, and I haven't even bothered to add Overture to the list. My ad budget isn't bottomless, pay per click isn't great, and I focus on the biggest game in town. If I ever expand my search budget it would go like this.

      1. Do Overture at all

      2. More money on google

      3. More money on overture

      4. See two, repeat.

      I don't think I'd ever ad MSN. Who ever searches from there?

      • Re:For this to work (Score:2, Insightful)

        by tempehop ( 912329 )
        I don't think I'd ever ad MSN. Who ever searches from there? According to http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_500 [alexa.com] MSN is hit more than Google. I'd be willing to guess that they have the searchs of the average internet surfer who doesn't have AdBlock and who are probably more likely to click on an Ad than the person running firefox, with google set to their homepage. But Microsoft doesn't even have to do astoundingly well to deal revenue damage to google, since they can take up new customers who really don't
        • Since Alexa is removed by both Ad-Aware and Spybot I wonder how accurate there info really is? The only people who have Alexa on their systems are the ones who take things exactly as M$ gives it to them. Those boxes are mostly zombies now.
          • > Since Alexa is removed by both Ad-Aware and Spybot I wonder how accurate there info really is?

            Accuracy has nothing to do with number of users they have. They just report data they get, so the figures (from their sample) are absolutely correct.
            Whether they are representative of the whole Internet, that's another thing, although I can't see why would one consider PageRank info more representative of a site's popularity than Alexa's.

            >The only people who have Alexa on their systems are the ones who take
        • It's because all the misspelt domains, etc in IE get automatically directed to MSN.

          So every single typo the average joe does is a hit for MSN. But you can't get to google with a misspelling.

      • This was exactly our strategy, although we haven't gotten past #3 yet, mainly because Overture isn't delivering our daily limit of clicks. The biggest problem with adding a third player is that it's just another thing to have to deal with. I get calls frequently from people wanting me to list with their suite of sites, and I just tell them that I'm not interested.
    • Wouldn't someone have to use M$ search?

      No, not if it works like Google Adwords. For example someone may search with Yahoo!, go to a page on your site. On your page a piece of Javascript connects to the Adwords server with the page URL. Adwords checks its own database to see what the page is about and serves up appropriate ads based on:

      1. the amount that users are bidding on those keywords
      2. the number of clickthroughs for each ad

      #2 is interesting - it means Google does not necesarily serve the highest bidd

  • Level the playing field ?? (Score:5, Funny)

    by serutan ( 259622 ) <snoopdoug@RABBIT ... minus herbivore> on Sunday September 04, 2005 @01:03AM (#13474544) Homepage
    Balan noted that the application helps to "level the playing field" for small and medium-sized businesses

    Because nobody knows the "level playing field" concept like Microsoft!
  • I happen to work for a much smaller player in the paid-search industry, and I must say that we are doing well so far. Google hasn't gobbled us up yet, but this news about M$ entering our market makes me feel a little worried about my stock options.

    Come to think of it, it could be good for my little company to watch two 600-lb. gorillas duke it out for primacy, while we sneak up from behind and nibble at their market share.

  • I never agreed to the terms of the passport end-user-license-agreement... primarily being their ability to change the terms on you without any notice, and continued use of the service constituted agreement to the new terms...

    all those moaning about how it's an invasion of privacy must note that when they agreed to that .net passport, they waived all rights in perpetuity... they allowed Microsoft & their "partners" to do whatever they want with the data... and it looks like their partners include anyone

  • Bill Gates began dreaming of "pay-per-click" the first time he saw a mouse in action.
  • http://www.adcmedia.com/ [adcmedia.com]

    Devils advocate - traditionally in advertising - noone knows what works, so targetted may work, at the end of the day:

    Someone looking at a gardening site - will they buy into ads selling 'gardening things' or things related to that aricle (it doesn't always work) :: OR is that person has just refinanced his house, o rmaxed out credit cards, or is a gambler or has lots of finance, will they hit ads that target them with refinancing, credit cards, and online gambling.

    It is this crowd o

  • Adblock filter? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Andy_R ( 114137 ) on Sunday September 04, 2005 @06:25AM (#13475661) Homepage Journal
    Anyone found one of these adverts yet? I'd like to block them before I ever see one, if possible.
  • who the hell would pay for ad's i dont even want to see the ones that are on there allready and between the adware and spyware whod want em anyway
  • Hey, I have a patent on that one!

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