Apparently Not Too Many People In Europe Care About Having Microsoft's Bing 'Forget' Them

from the bing-is-already-forgotten dept

It's no secret that Google has a much larger market share than Microsoft's Bing search engine -- especially in Europe where Google has been much more successful than its competitors. However, Bing and other search engines are still subject to the terrible EU Court of Justice ruling on the right to be forgotten, which has resulted in Google removing a bunch of links. As we noted, Google was flooded with requests, and had to set up a process and staff to handle them all -- something it hasn't done a very good job with so far.

So, what's Microsoft doing? Well, it's taking it's time, but is promising to get a request form similar to Google's up. It doesn't sound like it's going to have to hire a very big staff to do so, because it appears that Microsoft's biggest concern in Europe may be more that it's been forgotten by Europeans. Almost no one is asking Bing to forget them:
When Google released its web form on May 30, for instance, it received about 12,000 requests within the first 24 hours. Microsoft is thought to have received fewer than 20 requests that day.
Ouch. That's almost insulting. Hell, even we received a request under that ruling (though a bogus one).
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: bing, europe, right to forget
Companies: google, microsoft


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 11 Jul 2014 @ 5:58am

    The new Microsoft advertising slogan, use Bing, we will give you the dirt on the politicians!
    /sarc

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    That Anonymous Coward (profile), 11 Jul 2014 @ 6:09am

    I think part of the problem is Google is constantly in the news cycle.
    IFPI demands 4.5 million links removed.
    **AA's demand 1000 bajillion links be removed.
    Random newspaper sued Google for kajillions for daring to point people at them and make them relevant.
    UK MP claims Google making trillions from piracy advertising to build moonbase to hide laser cannon to destroy children.
    (what, I'm sure this will be a headline in that one UK paper shortly)

    People are starting to equate Google with the Internet.
    Something bad happens online and it always is Google's fault.
    Google always finds a mention in news stories, lawsuits, public criers screaming how home taping is killing the music industry.

    Well that and Bing is well... ummm... not that good.
    Their claim to fame for a while is we load awesome pictures behind your results, making your searches take that much longer to load on your laughable connection speeds.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Michael, 11 Jul 2014 @ 6:23am

    Dear Google,

    It is our understanding that you are working on an appeals process to allow websites to contest a submission based on the Right to be Forgotten to get their website put back onto the internet.

    In the meantime, we are hoping that you have a manual process as our website http://www.bing.com has apparently been removed from the internet. Please let us know what documentation you need to make this site available to Europeans again as soon as possible.


    - Microsoft

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    mcinsand, 11 Jul 2014 @ 6:35am

    You gotta remember how Bing gets its results...

    Google busted Bing for using Google and then repackaging the search results. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Google 'forgetting' someone doesn't also result in Bing not showing a search on that person.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Manok, 11 Jul 2014 @ 6:47am

    Obviously, the first "forget" request Google processed was from someone named "Bing".

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Ima Fish (profile), 11 Jul 2014 @ 7:48am

    "I read on Bing that you're a child molester."

    "What's a 'Bing'?"

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 11 Jul 2014 @ 7:57am

    Microsoft isn't the Juggernaut they used to be, but they're still well established on the business and consumer desktop.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 11 Jul 2014 @ 8:34am

    Cause & effect

    So is Bing being ignored because no one thinks of them or are they being ignored because RTBF users run a Bing search for the unflattering content, find nothing, and conclude there is no need to submit a RTBF request? Maybe Bing is being spared from RTBF because their index does not return any RTBF-worthy material.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 11 Jul 2014 @ 8:40am

    Bing is incapable of finding what you want, that's why.

    I was trying to find some videogame guide I had read before, and I tried it on Bing to give it a try. I gave up after a few minutes of trying, I couldn't even find an alternate link that was just as good or better then the link I was looking for.

    I switched to google and ran the same search, the first search I did found the guide I was looking for.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 11 Jul 2014 @ 10:16am

    "Apparently not many people in europe care about Microsofts Bing"

    there, fixed the headline for you

    The thing is, most people here don't think about Microsofts searchengine at all. It is simply a non issue because barely anyone uses it at all. You have a better chance to find users of duckduckgo or yacy in any given population than users using bing.

    Bing is simply not relevant in europe.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 11 Jul 2014 @ 11:12pm

    Since Bing doesn't actually exist (it's just re-packaged Google results shown with wallpaper behind and contains exactly zero percent original search material), wouldn't this mean being de-listed by Google would have a knock-on effect on Bing itself? (Unless Bing uses search results from the US Google site of course)...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Toom1275, 14 Jul 2014 @ 6:19am

    Heh. Was reading too fast and misread "EU Court of Justice ruling" as "EU Court of Jesters ruling". Not too inaccurate.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.