Microsoft this morning released new data citing progress with its Live Search "cashback" initiative -- saying that its Live Search engine referred 12 percent of commercial online transactions in the U.S. in the second quarter. In other words, 12 percent of transactions resulted from people clicking through from a Live Search site.

That's noticeably better than Microsoft's 8.5 percent share of overall U.S. search queries, suggesting that the cashback consumer refund program is having an impact. Looks like the company could benefit from penny-pinching amid the economic turmoil.

However, the stats get a little thin upon closer examination: First of all, the numbers come from a custom comScore survey -- commissioned by Microsoft. Because of that, there's no data from previous periods for comparison. How much better is Microsoft really doing? We don't know.

In addition, the company isn't saying how well Google or Yahoo did with their own commercial transaction referrals. Presumably Google did considerably better, given its larger share of the market. But we don't know how much better, or whether Google is trending up or down.

Independent of the custom comScore report, Microsoft says it has seen a 30 percent increase in the number of products being offered through Live Search cashback. The company announced the participation of new advertisers AT&T, Drugstore.com, FTD, Gap (including Banana Republic and Old Navy), Kmart, RedEnvelope and Saks Fifth Avenue. In a Microsoft news release, eBay said Live Search cashback has improved its return on investment from paid search by 50 percent, and it's increasing its spending on search marketing with Microsoft "threefold."

Live Search cashback offers partial refunds to people who use the company's search engine to buy selected products. Satya Nadella, Microsoft's search engineering chief, is speaking this morning at the PubCon conference in Las Vegas. Look for more coverage later.