Bing's Visual Search has attacked us

[wajake41]

Microsoft Bing has attacked our sites with Visual Search, superimposing a Bing search link over our product's image on the prod page.
When the Bing link is clicked, it displays similar products from competing websites.
This is what chat has to say about Visual Search:

Visual Search Unfortunately, as a website owner, you can’t directly disable the Bing Visual Search link for users visiting your site through Microsoft Edge. This feature is controlled by the browser settings on the user’s end.

We have contacted the Washington State Attorney General with a complain about this.

[SNAGuy]

WOW ... I noticed that too!!!!!

[ocpxc02]

I had never seen this as I do not use Edge. It looks like it's been going on for awhile now and is very frustrating as we pay to get traffic to our site only to have someone else directing them back away. It affects Amazon, but I couldn't find an instance of it on Temu's website. It looks like you can prevent it from happening, but it will likely affect other functionality via css: img { pointer-events: none; }

[wajake41]

ocpxc02 Thanks for the lead.
Chat found the pointer-events style for me this morning.
Yes styling with pointer-events:none works but it disables any links on the image. Since our product page image is not a link I've added the pointer-events:none to our image there.
Looking for ways to remove it from other pages with images having links.

[ocpxc02]

We have the opposite scenario. It worked on CTGY for us, but we have links on the PROD page image.

[wajake41]

By using a "user agent" variable I have applied the fix specifically for Edge. The Boss and I are going to think about including the fix on category and storefront where we have links on the images.

[wajake41]

Styled all images to pointer-events:none for all images viewed with Edge. Someone should iniatiate a class action suit againnst Microsoft on this.

[mstella1]

Thanks for the heads up, I really never thought of it that way but you are completely right. Customers can easily look for a similar item someplace else.
As a temporary fix so I don't have to mess with the entire site I used this for now. I have a lot of mouseover scripts so this one works for me at the moment.

<img src="your-image.jpg" alt="Description" style="pointer-events: none;">

[wajake41]

Won't pointer-event:none disable mouseover and other mouse events to not work?

[wajake41]

FYI We complained to Microsoft about "Visual Search" "feature" in Edge. This is what they replied:

Subject: Executive Customer Relations - 11331420 - DoNotEdit:7053971045
Service Request: 7053971045
Good day storeowner,
I hope you're doing fine.

I have received a response from our Advertising team.

There is no ability to opt-out of the Price Comparison feature as it is designed to help Edge users find the best price possible for the products they purchase. Shopping browser extensions (PriceBlink, InvisibleHand, Rakuten, Honey, Karma, and many others) are widely adopted by users of Edge already to get the best deals during their online shopping. Microsoft Edge is enhancing this shopping experience through a range of built-in shopping features for both consumers and retailers. From price history tracking to cashbacks and coupons, these features help drive conversions and boost sales.

The Price Comparison experience is manually initiated by shoppers, occurring in less than 5% of cases after they click on an ad and visit a retailer's website. Meanwhile, retailers can seize a similar opportunity to showcase their better offers on their competitors' websites whenever it arises. Price Comparison is a platform experience that all retailers are a part of.

We can provide you with a promotional coupon if you would like to continue using the advertising platform.

Please let me know if you have further questions and if you are interested in the coupon so we can proceed accordingly.

I look forward to your reply. Until then, have a great day!

Sincerely

Brayan Q.
Relationship Manager
Microsoft Customer Support
+506 4114 1697

My question is: How many Miva merchants are benefiting from this comparison shopping feature that Microsoft offers?
It wasn't helping us! Maybe you?

[mstella1]

Won't pointer-event:none disable mouseover and other mouse events to not work?

Yes, it does but for me I didn't have any mouseover events on those images.

Also, this could be a lot of work for you but the alternative would be convert the images to gif files. It only does that to jpg files. You can test it on your site with one image to be 100% sure but what I found is that gifs are excluded.