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Contents8
  1. Consumer impact summary
  2. Privacy
  3. Incidents
  4. Censorship in China
  5. Child pornography
  6. Malware
  7. See also
  8. References

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Bing
Basic Information
Release Year 3 June 2009
Product Type Search Engine
In Production Yes
Official Website https://bing.com/

Microsoft Bing (also known simply as Bing) is a search engine owned and operated by Microsoft, and developed by Microsoft AI.

Consumer impact summary

Overview of concerns that arise from the conduct towards users of the product (if applicable):

  • User Freedom
  • User Privacy
  • Business Model
  • Market Control

Add your text below this box. Once this section is complete, delete this box by clicking on it and pressing backspace.


Privacy

In 2022, France imposed a €60 million fine on Microsoft for privacy law violations using Bing cookies that prevented users from rejecting those cookies.[1][2][3]

Incidents

Censorship in China

Microsoft has been criticized for censoring Bing search results to queries made in simplified Chinese characters which are used in mainland China. This is done to comply with the censorship requirements of the government in China.[4] Microsoft has not indicated a willingness to stop censoring search results in simplified Chinese characters in the wake of Google's decision to do so.[5] All simplified Chinese searches in Bing are censored regardless of the user's country.[6][7] The English-language search results of Bing in China has been skewed to show more content from state-run media like Xinhua News Agency and China Daily.[8] On 23 January 2019, Bing was blocked in China.[9] According to a source quoted by The Financial Times, the order was from the Chinese government to block Bing for "illegal content".[10] On 24 January, Bing was accessible again in China.[11]

Around 4 June 2021, the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Bing blocked image and video search results for the English term "Tank Man" in the US, UK, France, Germany, Singapore, Switzerland, and other countries. Microsoft responded that "This is due to an accidental human error".[12][13] According to an investigation by Bloomberg Businessweek, the full explanation was that Microsoft accidentally applied its Chinese blacklist globally.[14]

In December 2021, it was required by a "relevant government agency" to suspend its auto-suggest function in China for 30 days.[15] The search engine became partially unavailable in mainland China from 16 December until its resumption on 18 December 2021.[16][17] According to the company, a government agency in March 2022 required that it suspend auto-suggest function in China for seven days; Bing did not specify the reason.[18] In May 2022, a report released by the Citizen Lab of the University of Toronto found that Bing's autosuggestion system censored the names of Chinese Communist Party leaders, dissidents, and other persons considered politically sensitive in China in both Chinese and English, not only in China but also in the United States and Canada.[19][20]

In April 2023, Citizen Lab reported that Bing was more censorious in China than native Chinese search engines.[21][22]

Child pornography

A study released in 2019 of Bing Image search showed that it both freely offered up images that had been tagged as illegal child pornography in national databases, as well as automatically suggesting via its auto-completion feature queries related to child pornography. This easy accessibility was considered particularly surprising since Microsoft pioneered PhotoDNA, the main technology used for tracking images reported as originating from child pornography.[23] Additionally, some arrested child pornographers reported using Bing as their main search engine for new content.[24] Microsoft vowed to fix the problem and assign additional staff to combat the issue after the report was released.

Malware

In 2024, malware was found in the official Bing Wallpaper app that tries to change the users' browser settings in order to set the default web browser to Microsoft Edge. It has also been found stealing Edge, Chrome, and Firefox cookies.[25]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "France fines Microsoft 60 million euros over Bing cookies". Born's Tech and Windows World. December 24, 2022. Archived from the original on December 24, 2022. Retrieved December 24, 2022.
  2. ↑ "France fines Microsoft €60m for imposing advertising cookies". RFI. December 22, 2022. Archived from the original on December 24, 2022. Retrieved December 24, 2022.
  3. ↑ Xiao, Menghan (December 23, 2022). "Microsoft fined $64 million by France over cookies used in Bing searches". SC Media. Archived from the original on December 24, 2022. Retrieved December 24, 2022.
  4. ↑ Kristof, Nicholas (November 20, 2009). "Boycott Microsoft Bing". The New York Times. Archived from the original on November 23, 2009. Retrieved March 31, 2010.
  5. ↑ "Activists applaud Google's censorship move, China grumbles". IT PRO. March 23, 2010. Archived from the original on October 28, 2011. Retrieved January 30, 2012.
  6. ↑ "Boycott Microsoft Bing". The New York Times. November 20, 2009. Archived from the original on November 23, 2009. Retrieved March 23, 2010.
  7. ↑ "Bing's Chinese enigma". The Economist. February 12, 2014. Archived from the original on January 7, 2018. Retrieved January 6, 2018.
  8. ↑ Liu, Charles (May 17, 2016). "Bing Goes Full-on Censorship in English Search Results Within China". The Nanfang. Archived from the original on January 7, 2018. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  9. ↑ "China blocks Microsoft's Bing search engine". TheGuardian.com. Reuters. 24 January 2019. Archived from the original on December 8, 2019. Retrieved January 24, 2019.
  10. ↑ Yang, Yuan (2019-01-24). "China blocks Bing access in curb on last foreign search engine". The Financial Times. Archived from the original on December 11, 2022. Retrieved December 17, 2021.
  11. ↑ Lanxon, Nate (January 24, 2019). "Microsoft's Bing accessible again in China after hours of outages". Bloomberg News. Archived from the original on January 25, 2019. Retrieved 25 January 2019.
  12. ↑ "Bing Censors Image Search for 'Tank Man' Even in US". Vice. 4 June 2021. Archived from the original on June 5, 2021. Retrieved June 5, 2021.
  13. ↑ "Microsoft says error led to no matching Bing images for Tiananmen 'tank man'". Reuters. 5 June 2021. Archived from the original on July 5, 2021. Retrieved June 5, 2021.
  14. ↑ Gallagher, Ryan (March 7, 2024). "How Microsoft's Bing Helps Maintain Beijing's Great Firewall". Bloomberg Businessweek. Bloomberg L.P. Archived from the original on March 24, 2024. Retrieved March 23, 2024.
  15. ↑ "Microsoft's Bing suspends auto suggest function in China at government's behest". Reuters. 2021-12-17. Archived from the original on December 17, 2021. Retrieved December 17, 2021.
  16. ↑ Lin, Liza (2021-12-17). "Microsoft's Bing Halts Autofill Feature in China, Citing Local Laws". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on December 17, 2021. Retrieved December 17, 2021.
  17. ↑ "微软 Bing（必应）已可正常访问". IT Home (in 中文). 2021-12-18. Archived from the original on December 19, 2021. Retrieved December 19, 2021.
  18. ↑ "China requires Microsoft's Bing to suspend auto-suggest feature". Reuters. 21 March 2022. Archived from the original on March 22, 2022. Retrieved March 22, 2022.
  19. ↑ Knockel, Jeffrey; Ruan, Lotus (2022-05-19). "Bada Bing, Bada Boom: Microsoft Bing's Chinese Political Censorship of Autosuggestions in North America". Citizen Lab. Archived from the original on May 19, 2022. Retrieved May 19, 2022.
  20. ↑ Tilley, Aaron (2022-05-19). "Microsoft Is Censoring Searches in U.S. for Politically Sensitive Chinese Names, Researchers Say". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Archived from the original on May 20, 2022. Retrieved 2022-05-20.
  21. ↑ Myers, Steven Lee (2023-04-26). "China's Search Engines Have More Than 66,000 Rules Controlling Content, Report Says". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on April 29, 2023. Retrieved 2023-04-29.
  22. ↑ Chiu, Joanna (2024-06-27). "Microsoft Bing's censorship in China is even "more extreme" than Chinese companies'". Rest of World. Retrieved 2024-06-27.
  23. ↑ Constine, Josh (January 10, 2019). "Microsoft Bing not only shows child sexual abuse, it suggests it". Archived from the original on February 20, 2023. Retrieved February 20, 2023.
  24. ↑ Keller, Michael H.; Dance, Gabriel J. X. (November 9, 2019). "Child Abusers Run Rampant as Tech Companies Look the Other Way". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 2, 2019. Retrieved December 2, 2019.
  25. ↑ Maruccia, Alfonso (November 21, 2024). "The official "Bing Wallpaper app" does some nasty, malware-like things to Windows". Techspot. Archived from the original on 30 Dec 2025. Retrieved July 4, 2025.
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