Despite rumors to the contrary, Microsoft’s Scroogled campaign is long from over. Earlier today, a number of publications picked up on a comment by Bing Search Director Stefan Weitz who told KQED that the campaign is “about finished.” Now, however, a Microsoft spokesperson has told us that this is not true and that we should “stay tuned for the next chapter.”
Here is the full statement from Microsoft:
“Scroogled will go on as long as Google keeps Scroogling people. We know Google doesn’t like it when the facts come out. Chapter two of the consumer education campaign has shown people care about their privacy. More than 3.5 million people visited scroogled.com, and nearly 115,000 people signed a petition asking Google to stop going through their Gmail. Stay tuned for the next chapter.”
The Scroogled campaign, which alleges that Google is reading your email and focuses too much on paid placement in its Google Shopping results, started last November and is one of Microsoft’s most aggressive attempts to paint Google’s services in a negative light. It’s not clear how successful the campaign has been so far, but as Weitz told me last month, he doesn’t believe that a campaign that just focuses on features would be enough to convince users to switch search and email providers. Google, Weitz argued, “is a habit” for most people and Microsoft wants to use this campaign to get people to stop and think about their choices.
Given that it’s not over yet, we will surely get to see more gems like this in the near future: