Anybody else catch this story: Microsoft offers cash to searchers who buy

Quick snippets taken from the article

"SEATTLE — Unable to lure away Google's (GOOG) loyal patrons, and stymied in its efforts to catch the search giant by acquiring Yahoo, Microsoft (MSFT) on Wednesday revealed a new way to skin a cat.
The software giant launched a service that pays rebates to consumers who use a special version of its Live Search site to find products for sale — and make the online purchase." - USA Today

jeez, just think of the tracking technology behind that - privacy issues etc.
I guess the payments are made only with partner retailers?

Thats awesome... ish. I wonder if they will work on a way of giving money back to you depending on the amount you spend or just the fact that you spent some money?

If its the latter i can only imagine stax of shops opening up and selling 5c doses of happiness, then having the owners come from difference pc's every night to purchase their lil pieces of happiness

well to answer you both...yea according to the article MSN will partner with a bunch of retailers and then will give you a percentage (2-30%) back on the amount you spend

looks like some big names are joining, ones i use, so for even 10-20% i personally would start using MSN (for shopping at least)

Hopefully they hook up with paypal... i may even start buying bits online if it means i get a kinda Vat back.

Well i think that will depend on the retailers themselves

so for example one of the [ertners going into this is eBay...you know they'll take PayPal

Living in Costa Rica i basically buy everything online (excpet groceries) due to high prices here, high taxes, low selection, etc

everything from my car parts, to my ink cartridges for my printer, shoes...you name it

on the plus side i don't buy much stuff at all, but still ads up quickly

Looks like you buy the stuff from Microsoft's site (kinda like the way Amazon does it).  and the refund amount is a percentage (from 5% - 30%) paid after a 60 day waiting period.

MSN's live.com is becoming a Cashback site huh?

Great!
just f***in fantastic

just a little follow up- just noticed it's live now

if you do a search on Live.com now- for example "digital cameras" :

http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=d … AAR_728x90

you'll see the 'casback' logo's next to a few of the sponsored results

Here's a rundown of how it works http://search.live.com/cashback/howToUse

Is this a way of MSN to one-up Google and Yahoo in terms of Search Engine war?

interesting. looks like they are having problems this morning. i checked one of my keywords "cancun", and there is only one page of results. hmmmm. tim

latest from microsoft is points per clicks

You can accumulate points simply by searching for anything (up to 25 times per day), and exchange these for a range of prizes from ringtones to an Xbox 360 wireless controller.

Users get 500 points (or tickets, as Microsoft calls them) just to sign up, and get a maximum 25 points a day at one point a search. They have to use Internet Explorer, and you have to manually enter your search terms – so scripts auto-generating searches are out.

US users only im afraid

I do not think that MSN will pay for search. If they will launch this kind of programme than they will certainly be in loosing side. Because its clearly mentioned that they have lost the battle to Google and Yahoo.

Yeah they can give a try for that but they should improve their technology so that anyone who use msn will satisfy with the search result.

I do not know but why they are going to pay for the search. That's really important thing to know. Look I do not believe in earning few bucks by clicking here and there but I certainly want to know what these big companies are thinking about. After all whatever they will do and decide that will effect our earning and our style of doing as well.