‘Bing’s blanket ban on tech support ads is lazy and idiotic’

Following the news that Microsoft is banning all third-party tech support adverts on its Bing search engine, one firm, 4CornerNetworks, has called the blanket ban ‘idiotic’.

At the end of last week, PCR reported that Microsoft has revised its global user safety policy. After finding that a large portion of third-party tech support advertisement was made up of scams, the firm has decided to put a blanket ban on all ads of this type, whether they are from legitimate tech support companies or not.

4CornerNetworks, a firm that provides Cisco technical support and onsite/remote Cisco support, has spoken out against the ban.

“We find the move from Bing idiotic. There are hundreds/thousands of genuine tech support providers ranging from small IT consultancies to multi-vendor and ICT providers,” 4CornerNetworks told PCR.

The firm detailed how its own PPC campaigns were stopped when the ban was enforced, all of which 4CornerNetworks stresses were 100 per cent genuine and legal adverts.

“The blanket ban highlights utter laziness from Bing to implement its policy sensibly,” said the company.

“Considering Bing ads are inferior to Google AdWords, they cannot afford to implement this blanket and discriminatory ban. The level of service we provide is exceptional and we have dozens and dozens of happy clients to prove it.

“All this policy will do is force people to become more dependent on Google, thus diluting the Bing brand in a competitive search marketing field,” concluded 4CornerNetworks.

Microsoft’s decision to ban third-party support ads follows the news that Google is taking further measures to protect users from bogus adverts. As of July 13th, the firm will no longer accept ads from payday loan companies. Facebook is also prohibiting payday loan advertisements.

Are you a genuine third party tech support firm? If so, tell us what you think about the ad block in the comment section below or email Online Editor Laura Barnes at lbarnes@nbmedia.com.