Microsoft is paying people to use its Bing search engine in a bid to woo the British public away from Google.
The company has introduced its Rewards programme as Google is dealing with reputational damage and a loss of advertisers after Times investigations found ads appearing alongside terror content on its YouTube platform.
Google accounts for about 86 per cent of online searches in the UK, with Bing in second place with a 10 per cent market share and Yahoo trailing in third with 3 per cent.
Users need to be signed into Bing via a free Microsoft account in order to earn points. An ordinary Bing search will earn three points, but this is doubled for those using Edge, Microsoft’s answer to Google’s chrome browser.
New Bing users can earn up to 60 points a day making ten searches through Bing.Those who manage 500 points in a month become “level 2” member, with the ability to earn up to 150 points a day through searches.
Advertisement
Microsoft will also pay one point for every £1 spent through the Microsoft, Windows and Xbox stores, and there’s the option to donate your points to approved charities.
To put this into context, you would need 10,000 points to buy the Xbox game Gears of War 4 Ultimate Edition, which has a retail price of £79.99, and could potentially earn that in 67 days of regular searching.
Microsoft’s previous efforts to topple Google have come to naught and some tech experts yesterday branded the company’s move “desperate”.