Publishers Clearing House buys Blingo

Blingo, the online search engine that allows users to win random prizes for searching, has been purchased by the direct mail and prize company, Publisher's Clearing House. The new site is called "PCHBlingo", but the domain remains the same. Publishers Clearing House is known for their postal mailings and the TV commercials, which originally featured Ed McMahon, that show ecstatic prize winners opening their doors to news of winning millions of dollars, balloons and flowers.

Blingo is a search engine that queries Google for it's results. A user has a random chance at winning a prize by using Blingo for the first 10 searches they do per day. The prizes range from a movie ticket to an Apple iPod. Blingo users are encouraged to sign up friends under them to help them win prizes. Anyone who uses their friends affiliate link to signup to Blingo will become their direct referral and if they win a prize, the person who they signed up under will also win that same prize. You may only claim one prize per month. Blingo has browser toolbars and plugins to make it easier to be used. The search results it returns are identical to those on Google, and has image and news search functions as well.

Like Publisher's Clearing House, Blingo makes it's money from advertisements. Blingo states that clicking on the advertisements don't increase your chance of winning, likewise, just as subscribing to magazines through Publisher's Clearing House won't increase your chances of winning with them.

Hopefully, current Blingo users won't start receiving unwanted PCH mailings, but if so, they are very easy to opt-out of. PCH says it doesn't rent or sell their mailing lists.

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