Microsoft search engine thwarted by glitches on first day
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As first assault on Google&#39;s leading position in the market, Microsoft&#39;s newly launched search engine encountered some technical problems on its first day.
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Company patches one search engine security flaw and is notified of another.
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The problem? Both Microsoft and Yahoo are weak where Google is strong: search.
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Looks like Microsoft may have been biding its time to get back at search giant Google. [Missing Links]
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(InfoWorld) - Google has complained to federal antitrust officials that the search tool in Microsoft'sÂ Windows VistaÂ Â discourages customers from using its own search utility, the company confirmed Sunday. Stories posted to the Web sites of The New York Times (registration required)Â and theÂ Seattle Post-IntelligencerÂ SaturdayÂ first revealedÂ that Google's complaint centered on Vista's built-in desktop search software, dubbed Instant Search. According to both newspapers, Google accused Microsoft of designing Vista to discourage users from running its indexing and search software. On Sunday, Google spokesman Ricardo Reyes confirmed the charge. "Microsoft's current approach with Vista desktop search violates its agreement with the government and hurts consumers." he said in an e-mail to Computerworld. "The search boxes built throughout Vista are hard-wired to Microsoft's own desktop search product, with no way for users to choose an alternate provider from these visible search access points. Likewise, Vista makes it impractical to turn off Microsoft's search index." According to postings on Microsoft's support forums, the only way to completely disable Vista's search is to stop the Windows Search service in the Microsoft Management Console. Microsoft disputed Google's charges. "We've been working with state and federal antitrust officials for the past two years to ensure that there are no problems with any of the features in Windows Vista," said company spokesman Jack Evans. "These desktop search issues were reviewed at length with regulators prior to the release of Windows Vista and resulted in more than a dozen changes at their request." Even so, Microsoft will consider more changes to Vista, Evans added. "While we donât believe there are any compliance concerns with desktop search, we are committed to going the extra mile to resolve this issue, so long as the changes Google is requesting do nothing to undermine the privacy and security of computer users." During aÂ March 2007 hearingÂ conducted by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, the federal judge who oversees the 2002 Microsoft consent decree, the government's status report noted that a complaint had been filed, but did not identify the company. "At the last status conference, plaintiffs reported that they had just received a middleware-related complaint," theÂ status reportÂ read. "Since then, plaintiffs have been investigating this complaint, including obtaining significant additional information from Microsoft and the complainant." Google had previously raised concerns about search in Microsoft'sÂ Internet Explorer 7Â browser with federal officials. In May 2006, however,Â federal officials rebuffed Google, saying that IE 7 users could easily switch search providers and that computer makers could set the default search engine in IE 7 before shipping systems. Google has also filed similar complaints over search in both IE 7 and Vista with the European Union's antitrust commission. Those complaints have not been settled. According to The New York Times, the U.S. Department of Justice refused to pursue the Google complaint, andÂ Thomas Barnett,Â the assistant U.S. attorney general for antitrust, sent a memo to numerous state attorneys general in May asking them to also reject the complaint. Prosecutors in several of those states, however, have reportedly decided to investigate the Google concerns whether the federal government goes along or not, a decision that has Barnett reconsidering the agency's position. E-mails and phone calls asking several of the states involved with the 2004 Microsoft settlement to comment were not returned Sunday. Barnett's division will present its next report on Microsoft's progress in meeting the 2002 settlement to Kollar-Kotelly in a hearing scheduled for June 26. Â
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Tomorrow, Microsoft finally releases the beta version of its proprietary search engine. For over a year, webmasters and SEOs have seen evidence of MSNbot spidering their sites as MSN-Search gathered information and compiled its database.
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Google's Desktop Search application indexes a PC hard drive when it's not being used
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Google has patched a hole in its search engine that could have allowed malicious hackers to modify the content of the Google search results page or silently modify search results.
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Microsoft's unveils improved Live Search but we've seen most of it before.
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JACKSONVILLE, FL -- Even though it is still a &quot;Beta&quot; or test product, the new MSN Search engine is getting a lot of attention.
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HOUSTON - A computer scientist and two of his graduate students at Rice University found a security flaw in a search tool distributed by Google, allowing the popular Web site to fix the problem.
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Google was first to market a desktop search utility. Well, actually, others were first, but Google&#39;s the one everyone noticed.
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MSN Search suffered from early glitches and poor reviews upon its release, but IDC analyst Sue Feldman said such problems could be expected.
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The portal's lapse tells a lot about the state of Web search privacy
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Plus: Is Microsoft search engine crawling Google? [News.com Extra]
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Software giant, Microsoft Corp., has decided to release beta versions of its updated MSN search engine earlier today. The company hopes to compete against leading search engines such as Google and Yahoo by
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A search engine with a falling audience, and no clear direction--but it's cheap.