[josefresco]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that maybe MS is okay with Bing returning results, even pirate results that Google does not.

Maybe MS agrees with the Pirate mantra that piracy doesn't hurt, but help sales. What would happen if pirates, even casual pirates learned that Bing results weren't filtered but Google's were? I would suspect a massive uptake in usage if this was proven. And who are these pirates? They're the most geeky of your friends, the ones who influence and tutor the non-tech savvy about what tech products and services to use (Bing, Windows, Office etc.)

Crazy? Probably. But still fun to consider. Too bad MS is too big, slow and traditional to do something this radical.

[rbanffy]

Protecting Microsoft's market share and its associated network effect is very important for them - if Windows' share falls below a certain level, writing Word documents, sending PowerPoint presentations, keeping your e-mail in Exchange and your workflows in SharePoint will make much less sense than it does today. As it happens, Microsoft products become less attractive and their share spirals toward an equilibrium point given by their cost/benefit ratio as compared to their competitors.

Even if they lose some sales to piracy, as long as network effect work to their advantage, it's worth to lose it to a free version of their product than to a competitor.

It's unsurprising if they turn a blind eye to piracy when they judge it benefits them.

Having said that, this looks a lot like incompetence, or a contractor that's being paid to issue takedown notices only to Google.

[brudgers]

I see a different and more likely possibility. Microsoft has an interest in tracking usage patterns among those inclined toward pirating their software. If the pirates use Google, then they don't have access to that data, whereas they do with Bing. It's not as if Google is likely to share their information.