• Information Week, Monday, July 16, 2007 11:15 AM

Last week, Information Week reported on MSN's tremendous gains in search share for Live Search. After the report, readers openly questioned the merits of the company's astonishing 67%t gain in search volume. At the time, the gains were attributed to the prizes users were awarded for using Live Search in the new MSN game zone, Live Search club.

As it turns out, a huge chunk of the statistical spike can be better-attributed to bots, says one Live Search Club user. "The reason their search engine is being hit so frequently is that people are running automated 'bot' programs to play the Live Search games for them," says user Jack Krause. "Microsoft is essentially being DDoSed by thousands of people hundreds of times per minute, but they are mistaking this rise in traffic for people actually using Live Search."

Live Search club users are awarded tickets for participating in the clubs' games; the tickets are redeemed for Microsoft prizes, including Xboxes, Zune media players, a new Windows Vista operating system and other expensive items. Microsoft confirmed that the number of winners was so high for last week's prize--Windows Vista--it was later removed. Microsoft said it was due to high demand, but another Live Search Club member rebuffed those claims, saying: "You can completely max out the number of tickets available within six to eight hours without even being at your computer."

Read the whole story at Information Week »