Microsoft Backpedals on Forcing Bing Search for Office 365 Users

Microsoft announced today that the Microsoft Search in Bing Google Chrome extension will not be forcibly installed for Office 365 ProPlus users as the company said on January 22.

The Microsoft Search browser extension would have forced the Chrome browser to use Bing as the default search engine for some Office 365 ProPlus customers, helping them "access relevant workplace information directly from the browser address bar."

Microsoft was planning to roll out the extension to enterprise customers starting with Office 365 ProPlus, Version 2002, through the targeted monthly channel, and in early March for those on the monthly update channel.

Backpedaling due to customer 'concerns'

Microsoft now says that it heard customers' concerns regarding the way the company planned to roll out "this value out."

"Most importantly, we heard that customers don't want Office 365 ProPlus to change search defaults without an opt-in, and they need a way to govern these changes on unmanaged devices," Microsoft says.

According to Redmond the Microsoft Search in Bing extension will no longer be automatically deployed with Office 365 ProPlus updates and new installations as planned.

"Through a new toggle in Microsoft 365 admin center, administrators will be able to opt in to deploy the browser extension to their organization through Office 365 ProPlus," Microsoft adds.

"In the near term, Office 365 ProPlus will only deploy the browser extension to AD-joined devices, even within organizations that have opted in. In the future, we will add specific settings to govern the deployment of the extension to unmanaged devices."

Last but not least, the company says that it will continue to allow end-users who opt-in to have the Bing Search extension installed on their computers to choose their preferred search engine.

Due to these changes, the Microsoft Search in Bing extension will not ship with Version 2002 of Office 365 ProPlus. We will provide an updated timeline for this rollout over the next few weeks. - Microsoft

Outrage on all comm channels

After Redmond announced their decision to enable the Bing extension within Chrome for enterprise users, customers expressed their disapproval on numerous online forums, including Twitter, Reddit, and GitHub, asking the company to stop forcing Bing search on its users.

Microsoft's feedback section to the support article explaining how the Bing Chrome extension will roll out was also invaded by outraged admins and users. 

"Utterly Unacceptable. This feature SHOULD NOT be on by default and is totally unacceptable in a business environment," a customer added. "It would be bad enough if bing was a good search engine but it's just not, no matter how many users you force onto the platform."

"NO WAY, this is unacceptable. What are you thinking? Is this a return to the IE browser wars or something? This is an amazing abuse and should NOT be done under any circumstance," another user said at the time.