BingDings* Force Change of Tune

* Sorry, but I couldn't resist a Crosby reference.

I was more than a little irritated over the weekend – see Faith, Hope, Charity and Manipulation - by Microsoft's use of the Japanese disaster to give the Bing search engine a little extra exposure using a chaintweet technique:

How you can #SupportJapan – http://binged.it/fEh7iT. For every retweet, @bing will give $1 to Japan quake victims, up to $100K. 7:45 AM Mar 12th via CoTweet

It seems I wasn't the only one to get that piecemeal queasy feeling at the use of what is essentially a chain-letter PR approach to a charitable impulse ("“Look. We’re being charitable. But only if you tell lots of people about it!”). A subsequent tweet from @bing sounds a little more ethically grounded:

We apologize the tweet was negatively perceived. Intent was to provide an easy way for people to help Japan. We have donated $100K.

Well, the no-strings donation is a noble gesture, and the page Microsoft was pointing to is actually a useful resource, so I'll refrain from any further BingDings.

The following stories also refer (there are lots of others):

• Paul McNamara for Network World: Microsoft apologizes for using Japan disaster to market Bing: Tweet tying company contributions to number of retweets causes uproar
• Kelly Fiveash for The Register: Microsoft says 'sorry' after Japan quake marketing gaffe: Opportunistic Bing tweet sparks anger online

David Harley CITP FBCS CISSP
ESET Senior Research Fellow