Contest Overview

The Bing Photo Contest offers people the chance to have a photo they've taken be displayed as the official Bing home page photo for a 24 hour period. This is a skill based contest. The winning photo will be selected by a combination of user ratings and evaluation by the Bing home page editorial team for compliance with the home page photo guidelines.

The theme for this contest is "Summer Travel", so photographers should strive to feature or evoke summer travel destinations or experiences.

Participation

The Bing Home Page Photo Contest is open to everyone, unless you are involved in the administration and/or execution of the contest. You may participate in the contest in two ways, by submitting photos, and by rating photos. People who submit photos may also rate other people's photos, but not their own. Photos submitted that are in compliance with the Contest Rules will be available on Facebook for viewing and rating. Microsoft is not responsible for any unauthorized use of your photos by Facebook users.

Photo Submission Criteria

All photos must be consistent with the summer travel theme and in compliance with the Contest Rules. Microsoft reserves the right to remove photos at any time that are not in compliance with the Contest Rules.

We strive to show new things every day, but we do have the following limits on subject matter:

• No recognizable people
• No 3rd party trademarks or logos (such as distinctive packaging or building exteriors or interiors) owned by others
• No objectionable content, such as alcohol, smoking, guns, violence, or nudity
• No content that is defamatory to any group or individual and/or violates any law

For a full list of criteria, see the Photo Guidelines. The full list of photo submission criteria is incorporated into these Contest Rules.

Judging Process

The competition has three rounds: two rounds of voting on Facebook and one round of selection by the Bing home page editorial board. The ultimate winner is decided by a combination of popular rating in the first round, then editorial selection in the semi-final round, and popular vote in the final round.

Round 1 - Qualification and Elimination

During this round, any Facebook user may rate photos. Users are given a set of photos at random by the application for rating. Users may rate as many sets of photos as they wish. Ratings are only counted one per person per photo. Each set of photos is selected by the application so that all photos receive equal opportunity in the rating process to help eliminate bias.

Once photos receive 50 ratings and an average score of at least 2.0, they qualify for the leaderboard and are ranked by average rating. The leaderboard is limited to the top 1000 photos based on rating. Photos which have an average score of less than 2.0 will be eliminated from the contest.

Round 2 - Semi-Final

After the first round of voting is finished, the Bing home page editorial team will review the top photos on the leaderboard and select 8 photos for advancement to the Final round, proceeding in order of rank on the leaderboard with photos that are in compliance with the Contest Rules. If we do not receive a sufficient number of entries in compliance with the Contest Rules, we may, at our discretion, select fewer semi-finalists. Rank at the top of the leaderboard does not guarantee advancement into the Final round, but only the top-ranked photos will be considered. The top 8 photos not selected by the Bing home page editorial team will remain on the leaderboard with Honorable Mentions.

Round 3 - Final

During this round, the photos selected by the Bing home page editorial team will be presented on Facebook for a final round of voting by Facebook users to determine the contest winner. Facebook users will be invited to vote for one photo in this round and the photo that receives the most votes will be the contest winner.

Winning

After the close of the final round, the photo that received the most votes will be declared the winner. The Bing photo contest will have only one winner. The winning photo will be featured on Bing as the official home page photo for 24 hours on August 3, provided that the photo is in compliance with the Contest Rules. The winning photographer will be given credit for the photo.

Image Ownership

All digital images must be original work. Participants retain ownership rights to their photos. You must have taken the photograph yourself, and submitted photos cannot violate the privacy or intellectual property rights of any person or entity. This shall include, but not be limited to, all third party copyrighted materials.

By submitting your photograph you grant Microsoft Corporation and its affiliates (collectively, "Microsoft") an unlimited, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, nonexclusive right and license to use, reproduce, publish, modify, perform and display the image on the bing.com webpage or any replacement or successor to such web page, and in any marketing or advertising of any kind related thereto, in any medium now known or later developed.

Microsoft will not pay you any compensation for your photograph or any use we may make of it.

Microsoft is not obligated to use your photograph and we may not notify you if we do not use it.

By submitting your photograph you agree and represent to Microsoft that you are the photographer and the sole copyright owner of the photograph.