Microsoft enhances Live Search with cashback

May 22nd, 2008

Microsoft has announced a new initiative targeted at breaking into Google dominance of web search. The new functionality, which is an integral part of Microsoft’s Live Search, will offer cash back to the consumers who buy products available through the program. The project is called Live Search cashback and currently offers products from around 200 merchants.

On one hand we at Buxr are excited to see Microsoft experimenting with new web technologies, on the other hand we believe the truly budget minded consumers should explore all options on their quest to the best deal and while web search is the fundamental instrument to achieving this goal, it should not be biased towards any particular product or merchant.

Integrating cash back into Live Search can be damaging to the search quality since it requires Microsoft to engage into affiliate agreements with each of the merchants and makes it dependent on the merchant pay backs.

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