Microsoft has reached $1M giveaway levels of desperation to attract users to Bing

We're not saying Microsoft is desperate for people to use Bing, but a $1 million sweepstakes that grants entries to users of the search engine sure quacks like a duck.

The contest, which kicked off last month, is open to anyone with a Microsoft account (who resides in the US, Canada, UK, France, or Germany) and a willingness to rely on Bing's oh-so-accurate search results. As is often the case with sweepstakes like this, entrants can gain multiple chances to win if they keep performing various tasks, many of which have to do with using Bing, to earn virtual tickets.

The sweepstakes page, ostensibly a Microsoft Rewards contest and not a Bing-centered one, indicates that each eligible person can earn up to 200 entries for doing things like changing their default search engine to Bing and using it to do a search, installing Microsoft Edge or the Bing ...