Microsoft does it again and has added a very sneaky Bing Search shortcut to Android devices through the popular Outlook email app.
In recent days, some users who have Outlook installed on their devices noticed an interesting “Bing search” shortcut option when pressing and selecting text. This is also not limited to the Outlook app itself, which is more forgivable.
Bing search option started to appear system wide when selecting or highlighting text on your devices. Now, this is not the first time that Microsoft has done very dubious things with its apps and ads. About a year ago, the company was caught hijacking the Share Sheet to advertise its own apps.
While hijacking the Share Sheet is pretty obvious, this Bing Search shortcut feels a little more subversive. You may not even notice it at first, which actually makes it feel a little more nefarious. So to clarify, usually when you long press a snippet of text on a webpage or part of Android, you will get a little mini menu of options. These will generally include “Copy”, “Share”, “Select All” and “Web Search”.
According to XDA’s Mishaal Rahman, it appears Microsoft is using the contextual text selection that was introduced in Android Marshmallow to create its own options within this pop-up menu when the text is highlighted. Found a code that mentions “Edge integration” which suggests that Bing Search can display this shortcut on those Android devices with Microsoft Edge as the default browser (via Android Police)
However, there is no guarantee that Bing’s search shortcut will appear within its floating mini-menu, even if Edge is set as your default browser. Some commenters on the original Reddit thread where the original complaints arose claim that they don’t actually have Bing or Microsoft Edge installed on their device, so this is not a necessary precursor.
So while Microsoft doesn’t seem to be doing something necessarily ‘iffy’, it’s definitely a very cunning way to add the option, and at least it feels like spam. Considering that this appears to be the result of installing the Outlook app and not Bing Search, it feels even worse.
Please let us know if you have seen the Bing Search shortcut that appears on your device in the comments section below.
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