After Search Engine Watch's Danny Sullivan announced that he was unable to view the new Windows Live beta during is daily search cast podcast, I sensed a possible conspiracy and decided to do some investigative reporting. After a few well placed phone calls, I struck gold.

"Windows Live is a Beta" said Natma Ralnami, Microsoft's Senior Vice President of Search Engineering, "Like any other Beta program, Microsoft reserves the right to keep certain members of the press out. It just makes common sense."

When pressed why Mr. Sullivan was specifically targeted in this reverse search engine cloaking scheme, Ralnami had the following to say:

"Mr. Sullivan wasn't specifically targeted; we implemented algorithms that identified online writers that might not be sympathetic to the kinds of issues a beta product like ours might run into.” “We just programmatically applied good PR 101 lessons.” Said Microsoft’s Ralnami.

Impressed by their impressive desire for PR Relevancy, I asked them what issues might trip an algorithm like this and get a writer caught in the Microsoft penalty box.

"Although we don't give out any specifics about our algorithms, I did do a bit of research into Mr. Sullivan's available online content and can clearly see a strong bias towards our competition as well as a potential "personal relationship" and / or fascination with Matt Cutts, a well known competitive engineer."

Well there we have it, straight from the source.

Sorry Danny, tricks are for kids!