Microsoft has announced plans to encrypt Bing searches by default. The company currently provides said functionality as an option, but will enable TLS support by default across networks and services.
Microsoft will activate TLS protocols this summer, encrypting search traffic across the network. This will mean that instead of traffic arriving from http://www.bing.com, you'll be served by https://www.bing.com. This changes a few things for marketers and webmasters who rely on tracking data provided by Microsoft.
The company will still provide referrer strings to identify traffic as originating from Bing, but to protect user privacy, Microsoft will not include used query terms. Limited query term data will – however – be provided to various Microsoft tools, including the Search Query Terms Report, Universal Event Tracking, and Bing Webmaster Tools.
Microsoft notes that while the company understands how this change may affect marketing and webmaster data collection, a more secure search experience for consumers is deemed more important. See the blog post for more details on the highlighted tools you'll need to use to check search data.
Source: Bing
