Transparency Center

Report September 2025

Submitted

Microsoft Ireland Operations Limited (MIOL)– the provider of Bing’s services in the European Union (EU) – welcomes the opportunity to file this report on our compliance with the commitments and measures of the strengthened 2022 EU Code of Practice on Disinformation that we subscribed to in our Subscription Document dated 15 January 2025. This report covers the period from 1 January to 30 June 2025 (the “Reporting Period”).

Bing Search is an online search engine with the primary objective of connecting users to the most relevant search results from the web. Users come to Bing with a specific research topic in mind and expect Bing to provide links to the most relevant and authoritative third-party websites on the Internet that are responsive to their search terms. Therefore, addressing misinformation or disinformation in organic search results often requires a different approach than may be appropriate for other types of online services, as over-moderation of content in search could have a significant negative impact on the right to access information, freedom of expression, and media plurality.

Bing carefully balances these competing fundamental rights and interests as it works to ensure that its algorithms return the most high-quality content available that is relevant to the user’s queries, working to avoid causing harm to users without unduly limiting their ability to access answers to the questions they seek. In some cases, different features may require different interventions based on functionality and user expectations.

While Bing’s remediation efforts may on occasion involve removal of content from search results (where legal or policy considerations warrant removal), in many cases, Bing has found that actions such as targeted ranking interventions, or additional digital literacy features such as Answers pointing to high authority sources, or content provenance indicators, are more effective. Bing regularly reviews the efficacy of its measures to identify additional areas for improvement and works with internal and external subject matter experts in key policy areas to identify new threat vectors or improved mechanisms to help prevent users from being unexpectedly exposed to harmful content in search results that they did not expressly seek to find.

Bing offers numerous generative AI experiences for users. For example, users may see generative search results on the main search engine results page for informational and complex queries. Generative search results are contained and indicated with an icon with the sentence “This summary was generated by AI from multiple online sources. Find the source links used for this summary under "Based on sources".” Users continue to see traditional search results immediately below any generative results.

Bing also offers a fully generative search experience, previously known as Bing Generative Search and rebranded in April 2025 to Copilot Search. Copilot Search combines the foundation of Bing’s search results with the power of large and small language models (LLMs and SLMs). It understands the search query, reviews millions of sources of information, dynamically matches content, and generates search results in a new AI-generated layout to fulfil the intent of the user’s query more effectively.

Bing also offers Bing Image Creator and Bing Video Creator. These experiences, powered by the very latest DALL∙E models from our partners at OpenAI, allow a user to create images and videos simply by using their own words to describe the picture they want to see.

Bing follows the “Trustworthy Search Principles” (found at How Bing delivers search results - Microsoft Support) to guide the product design, experience, algorithms, and mitigation measures that Bing adopts to ensure users’ expectations are met while addressing potential risks or harms arising from use of the service, including across Bing’s GenAI experiences.

As confirmed by Bing’s Year Two and Three Digital Service Act (DSA) Systemic Risk Assessments, the residual risks most relevant to misinformation and disinformation (i.e. those relating to Civic Discourse and Electoral Process, Public Health and Public Security) are categorised as “Low”. Of note, during the Reporting Period, Bing participated in the Rapid Response Systems activated for the elections in Germany, Romania, Portugal and Poland, and received no notifications during this period.

Bing supports the objectives of the European Code of Practice on Disinformation (the “Code”) and we are committed to actively working with Signatories and the European Commission in the context of this Code to defend against disinformation on the Bing service.

Unless stated otherwise, data provided under this report covers a reporting period of 1 Jan 2025 to 31 June 2025 (“Reporting Period”).

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Commitment 16

Relevant Signatories commit to operate channels of exchange between their relevant teams in order to proactively share information about cross-platform influence operations, foreign interference in information space and relevant incidents that emerge on their respective services, with the aim of preventing dissemination and resurgence on other services, in full compliance with privacy legislation and with due consideration for security and human rights risks.

We signed up to the following measures of this commitment

Measure 16.1

In line with this commitment, did you deploy new implementation measures (e.g. changes to your terms of service, new tools, new policies, etc)?

Yes

If yes, list these implementation measures here

Bing participated in the Elections Working Group’s Rapid Response System and established additional intake channels to facilitate cross-platform information sharing in relation to elections in Germany, Romania, Portugal and Poland.

Do you plan to put further implementation measures in place in the next 6 months to substantially improve the maturity of the implementation of this commitment?

Yes

If yes, which further implementation measures do you plan to put in place in the next 6 months?

We will continue to work to include data on potential foreign influence operations from teams across Microsoft to inform early detection and defensive search strategies for Bing search and Bing generative AI features. We also look forward to continuing to work on this commitment with the other signatories to further cross platform information sharing.

Measure 16.1

Relevant Signatories will share relevant information about cross-platform information manipulation, foreign interference in information space and incidents that emerge on their respective services for instance via a dedicated sub-group of the permanent Task-force or via existing fora for exchanging such information.

Although sharing of disinformation does not occur on the Bing platform (i.e., through the use of user accounts and networks), Bing supports cross-platform information sharing protocols established under this Measure. As a search engine, Bing may however have limited information to share with other platforms about cross-platform influence and foreign interference and therefore subscribes with the understanding that it principally participates as a recipient of information.

QRE 16.1.1

Relevant Signatories will disclose the fora they use for information sharing as well as information about learnings derived from this sharing.

Bing Search is an online search engine, the primary purpose of which is to provide a searchable index of webpages available on the internet to help users find the content they are looking for. Bing Search does not host the content or control the operation, content, or design of indexed websites. Users come to Bing Search with a specific research topic in mind and expect Bing to provide links to the most relevant and authoritative third-party websites on the Internet that are responsive to their search terms. Bing Search does not allow users to post and share content or otherwise enable content to go “viral” through user-to-user exchanges of information on Bing. Although as a search engine Bing does not have any control over third party websites appearing in search results, Bing’s ranking algorithms, spam policies, and other safeguards described below can also address and mitigate the risks arising from malicious websites that use other TTPs attempting to manipulate our search engine rankings.

Bing’s primary mechanism for combatting manipulative behaviors in search results is via its ranking algorithms and systems designed to identify and combat attempts to abuse search engine optimization techniques (i.e., spam). Bing Search describes the main parameters of its ranking systems in depth in How Bing Delivers Search Results. Abusive techniques and examples of prohibited SEO activities are described in more detail in the Bing Webmaster Guidelines. These pages provide a deeper, more detailed understanding of how Bing search algorithms work that cannot be fully detailed here given the space limitations of this report and complexity of how search engines rank websites.

As described in these documents, Bing’s ranking algorithms are designed to identify and prioritize high quality, highly authoritative content available online that is relevant to the user’s query and to prevent abusive search engine optimization techniques (spam).

One of the key ranking techniques Bing uses to prevent low quality or misinformative websites from returning high in search results is through the “quality and credibility” score. Determining the quality and credibility (QC) of a website includes evaluating the clarity of purpose of the site, its usability, and presentation. QC also consists of an evaluation of the page’s “authority”, which includes factors such as:

Reputation: What types of other websites link to the site? A well-known news site is considered to have a higher reputation than a brand-new blog.
Level of discourse: Is the purpose of the content solely to cause harm to individuals or groups of people? For example, a site that promotes violence or resorts to name-calling or bullying will be considered to have a low level of discourse, and therefore lower authority, than a balanced news article.
Level of distortion: How well does the site differentiate fact from opinion? A site that is clearly labeled as satire or parody will have more authority than one that tries to obscure its intent.
Origination and transparency of the ownership: Is the site reporting first-hand information, or does it summarize or republish content from others? If the site doesn’t publish original content, do they attribute the source? A first-hand account published on a personal blog could have more authority than unsourced content.

In addition to its ranking algorithms, Bing Search’s general abuse/spam policies prohibit certain practices intended to manipulate or deceive the Bing Search algorithms. These policies include prohibitions intended to address the TTPs employed by malicious actors in the spread of disinformation. Pursuant to the Webmaster Guidelines, Bing may take action on websites employing spam tactics (such as social media schemes, keyword stuffing, malicious behavior, cloaking, link schemes, or misleading structured data markups) or that otherwise violate the Webmaster Guidelines, including by applying ranking penalties (such as demoting a website) or delisting a website from the index.

Note that it is not feasible to distinguish between general spam tactics and spam tactics employed by malicious actors specifically for the purpose of spreading disinformation. Therefore, Bing Search has not presented data on the amount of spam detected and actioned under its policies since these figures are indicative of actions taken toward spam overall and presently cannot be used to provide an accurate assessment of whether it pertains to spam used in connection with disinformation campaigns or spam used for another purpose (e.g., phishing).

Bing partners with numerous organizations, including independent third-party organizations and teams across Microsoft, to provide information on potential information operations that can be leveraged to inform early detection and defensive search strategies for Bing search and Bing generative AI features. For example,

Bing partners with independent third-party organizations, such as trusted fact checkers, news publishers, and research organizations, that provide fact checks, trustworthiness indicators, and early indicators of information operations, such as narratives or hashtags, to inform early detection and defensive search strategies. These organizations provide information for EEA member states, including in German, Polish, Romanian, and Portuguese languages, countries that had elections in the period. Bing also utilizes the ClaimReview open protocol to ingest fact checks into search results.
Bing partners with Microsoft’s internal threat detection and research teams, including Microsoft Threat Analysis Center (MTAC), to collect and analyse data on actors of disinformation, misinformation and information manipulation across platforms. These teams collaborate with external organisations and companies to support Microsoft product and service teams effectively respond to issues and threats. Through MTAC and Microsoft’s Elections and Societal Resilience team, Microsoft also offers mediums for election authorities, including in the EEA Member States, to have lines of communication with Microsoft to identify possible foreign information operations targeting elections.

SLI 16.1.1

Number of actions taken as a result of the collaboration and information sharing between signatories. Where they have such information, they will specify which Member States that were affected (including information about the content being detected and acted upon due to this collaboration).

Given the multipronged approach Microsoft and Bing take to monitoring and actioning influence operations and sources of misinformation and disinformation and the multiple internal and external sources relied upon, it is challenging to provide precise reporting on whether an incidence of single information sharing results in a corresponding defensive search intervention or other action.