Regular visitors will notice that the red ''Welcome'' message has changed.

This reflects a change in the procedure for new registrations. Until recently anyone wishing to sign up could do so by accepting some simple rules.

Unfortunately this has not been enough to prevent misuse. Therefore all new registrations now go through a simple procedure. On registration, they receive an email inviting them to give very brief details of themselves. If they respond positively they receive a password. If not, after 7 days, they are deleted. 

For some while numerous registrations have been attempted. With one exception, all have had nonsense ids, and most have e-mail addresses for territories not normally associated with an interest in Bing. Only the one has responded to the e-mail.