Boycott against the new Microsoft Search Technology

[rritoch]

While searching the web about the msn search engine I found a boycott against the search engine technology microsoft is developing. I found some some great reasons to join their boycott, and I decided to add some of my own.

Read why you should boycott their Search Engine

[TGR]

robots.txt

User-agent: msnbot
Disallow: /

I hope all of my competition does this!

IMO- a better boycott would be NOT USING it.

[thebassman]

I was thinking the same thing, TGR. The msn beta SE gives me great results so far... hehe.

[awall19]

people will let their content get indexed... you will not stop people from wanting a huge hunk of free traffic.

[imaginemn]

It’s pretty ironic you wanting to boycott msn for monopoly reasons when you are monopolizing the signature block with 4 links.

I seem to agree with most people here that by not adding your site to MSN is only hurting yourself and not Microsoft. All you are doing is blocking traffic from potential customers at a heavily used SE.

imaginemn

[Ferre]

I wanted to read that article but got a page not found 404 message. Any other source for the reasons why msn search should be boycotted?

[rritoch]

The page is back up, it was temporarily down while I was adding trademark information, must be careful when going against giants. I Was surprised to see microsoft doesn't own Internet Explorer, after researching what happened there I'm surprised Microsofts still able to use the name. As for blocking the msnbot spider, that will do more dammage to microsoft than a few people not using their search technology. The reasoning behind it is that if their search technology doesn't have good results no one will use it.

Note: I cleaned up my signature, I tried to change it earlier but I must have forgotten to save the changes. Hopefully they'll stay put this time

[thebassman]

Do you honestly think 1, 10, 100 or even 1000 people blocking the MSNbot will cause MSN to have poor search results? You would have to get 100's of 1000's of people and sites to do this to be effective... even that would barely slow MSN.

[Ferre]

You® sure® added® enough® of® those® trademark® thingies® in® that® text® now®. ®

[thebassman]

The ® should be like this "Microsoft®'s" not "Microsoft's®"

[imaginemn]

All the marks are funny.

Originally Posted by thebassman

The ® should be like this "Microsoft®'s" not "Microsoft's®"

Hey Bass, it's actually just Microsoft®, because you typically don't use trademarks in the Possessive or Plural Form.

Typically you would add the registration mark only on the first header and the first time it appears on the page and then add an attribution of XYZ ownership of the trademark(s) within the credit notice section of your page.

Here is a link referring to Microsoft's Trademark Guidelines.

http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/t...s/gnlguide.asp

I had to learn about this when I was getting my Microsoft MCSD Certification.

imaginemn

[thebassman]

Ahh... so you're right.

[ehman]

What will happen if Internet explorer was changed to no longer allow users of Internet Explorer, the default web browser on Ms. Windows, to change their default search engine. What if Internet Explorer doesn't allow other companies to install toolbars on Internet Explorer which is already the dominant, most used, web browser on the internet?

People would be forced to switch to firefox ? These kinds of fears are somewhat irrational. While we are at it lets boycott walmart for monopolizing the retail industry, and ebay for doing same for online auctions.

And besides Google not microsoft is the one who dominates the search engine (and contextual advertising) industry.

[Shawn]

You get someone like Michael Moore to do a 'fahrenheit 911' type story on it, then you're talking about making an impact

Till then, unless you have a voice that can be heard by millions across the world..it's kind of a no go..

[I, Brian]

That link is to such a pointless crappy page. Apparently, we should all boycott MSN search because:

1. Microsoft can develop search technology
2. Microsoft powers Windows and .NET.
3. Microsoft can be a big player in the search world
4. Block the MSN bot

Huh? So where's the actual argument??

Answer: there is none.