A couple of years ago Ubuntu went to Google asking for a revenue sharing deal, Google refused, even though they had done it many times before. Search was going to be Ubuntu's primary income in the netbook space. At the time Google probably thought they owned search. Its amazing what a little competition will do.
I would love to see Firefox and Safari change their default search to Bing (I would still use Google). Who knows, Google might start getting serious about things like privacy.
Gmail's still the only webmail provider which uses SSL by default.
There are numerous similar cases.
Microsoft can't use "Privacy" to market against Google because they do less to protect your privacy that Google do.
(They could argue "we are less competent than Google are at doing things with the information we also collect, so you are less likely to get freaked out when our services appear to read your mind". However, I'm unconvinced that lack-of-competence is a winning marketing strategy. But hey.. it seems to be working for Sarah Palin, so what do I know...)
If I were Microsoft or even better Yahoo! I'd back up a large dump truck full of cash to entice Firefox to switch the default engine. They prob would never take it, but you never know.
This makes a whole lot of sense. You can;t really ask for money from Google to keep them as the default search provider unless you're willing to change search providers.
Maybe it's just the Chicago market, but I can't make a single trip in my car without hearing a Bing radio ad. I'm pretty sure they're laying out a fair amount of marketing cash.
As another statistically irrelevant point, my mom who believes doing anything on the computer is "downloading" has started using Bing.
I would love to see Firefox and Safari change their default search to Bing (I would still use Google). Who knows, Google might start getting serious about things like privacy.