Google Accuses Microsoft Bing of Stealing Search

[digitalvampire]

As much as I hate to defend Microsoft here, and I REALLY do (Free/Libre software dev & advocate, if that puts it into perspective), I don't see what the problem is. Does Google not provide search results freely and openly to anyone? Is anyone not free to do what they want with those results? (I'm assuming yes, but that may not be the case, I genuinely don't know) So they are just upset that someone is using their results and maybe even repackaging/redisplaying/parsing/etc. them? Then good lord, don't provide the service. You don't think that free software developers get upset that EVERY Apple and Android device has their code on it and they probably don't get the credit they deserve, and zero money? Don't provide a service for free and then get upset when people use it. You do NOT have to provide that service. But at the same time, I understand that their are government regulations. Microsoft Pay in the billions every years for anti-trust fines, no one else even comes close. For example, if I was Google, I'd just block ALL my services from ALL Apple devices once Jobs started running his little mouth. I'd do the same if I was Microsoft. Put them out of business in like a month, but that whole government regulation thing. Anyway, I've made some points, you think about them. Both sides please.

 

[jhansonxi]

Bing Is Nearly Google

 

[randomizer]

Is this the same Google that was just accused of stealing code?

LOL!!!

It sure is, however those accusations fell flat within a few hours of publication. These accusations won't vanish so fast I don't think, since it's one company's word against another company's word.

 

[FloKid]

Clash of titans??? LoL. More like a squash of a bug by an elephant. Who even heard of Bing haha. I admit I used it, but only for C# and DirectX, who even knows about that stuff anyways lol. Bing Bing Bong, bounce outta here }: (

 

[mlopinto2k1]

Google's responses and blog posts remind me a great deal of a dictatorship, hidden amongst the shadows, occasionally displaying it's ugliness. Honesty, not manipulation, will win in the end.

 

[theshonen8899]

That's funny. It's almost as if this article is implying that we thought Bing was an original idea.

 

[f-14]

[citation][nom]gogogadgetliver[/nom]Why does everyone just regurgitate this without investigating?Bing is watching the behavior of the Bing Bar users. Google just made a synthetic result that would normally never occur then impersonated a Bing Bar user to "upload" the data into Bings ranking engine. The test is only valid within the parameters of the test itself.Bing did something pretty innovative and clever that Google again didn't think of first and they are floundering in a temper tantrum that reeks of childish insecurity.The Blogosphere meanwhile is swallowing this tripe and giving a free PR ride to Google (who let's face it is probably the biggest IP thief on the planet).Here is the REAL response from Microsoft which is not reported anywhere..http/www.bing.com/community/site [...] aight.aspx[/citation]

should have stuck around to reading the user comments at the bottom of that very artile as 2 people debunked everything claimed by microsoft in about a heartbeat.

dominicjj 2/2/2011 1:45 PM - Doesn't it bother you that Google can "trick" your results?

- Don't you find it strange that you use "1000 signals" and yet the Google result is the one that Bing uses?

- Do you really think Google employees worry about Bing for more than a nanosecond each day when your division, the Online Services Division, flushes half a billion dollars down the toilet every year?

- Did you know that Google's experiment was to catch you red-handed doing what you've been doing for months (working hard on core relevance eh?) rather than to trick your results once off?

- Do you know what click fraud actually is? Or did some poor minion have to tell you because you're non-technical?



Luigi Montanez 2/2/2011 1:52 PM When you're using click stream data from Google as a search signal, that's effectively copying from Google. You didn't do it directly or intentionally. But their results showed up in your results. At the end of the day, that's copying.

Will you blacklist click stream data from Google (and all other search engines)?

a great way to show this would be to use a few ficticious word phrases. use one word phrase on a linux system with firefox, use another word phrase on a linux system with IE8 and another word with linux and chrome. repeat on a windows machine with new ficticious word phrases and same search engines.
proof would be in the results

 

[zodiacfml]

the question here, how much users are using Bing? if it's significant enough then Google could get serious. if taken to court or settlement, Google might only get MS to disable Bing toolbar as the default install in IE browser.
few Bing toolbar users will improve little to their overall search results from getting user data. it is pretty much like a mosquito stealing search results from an animal.

 

[mayne92]

[citation][nom]djackson_dba[/nom]Is this the same Google that was just accused of stealing code?LOL!!![/citation]
...is your protagonist to your statement the same douche-bag company who steals open-source code verbatim and slaps a copyright on it...gets caught...and says there must be some mistake? Is it also the same company that advertised AND fooled 99% of Tom's readers and the author itself saying that Google is "spying" on you with what you type from the chrome address bar and showed demonstrations of such but yet FAILED to mention that the Bing search in IE does exactly the same thing? I just can't help but laugh at Tom's reader's who say they are "geeks" but yet make some of the stupidest comments on the net...you being one. Congrats.

 

[scooterboi]

so basically, M$ IE is a trojan that phones home your search?

epic win M$

 

[Manos]

I would like to state my opinion but for those of you hating MS so badly or are google lovers for some reason please don't read my opinion cause you will waste yours and other readers' time, having to read your pointless replies.

Ive been using for ages like most of us Google. I always hoped it wouldn't look so "dry" anymore ( same reason I am excited for the new Bios in Mobos like Asus' Maximus IV Extreme ). Its already having that MS-DOS feeling in it. Was the reason I ever used Bing a couple of times back in the days and I saw how poor the results are. I gave it another go a couple of months later. Still sucked and I instantly went back to find through Google what i was looking for.

Another couple of months later I needed to find something in video and picture results. Well... If you haven't tried Bing for that matter its ace. The results system it uses for pics and videos etc are SO useful, so pretty and convenient. Try Binging ( lol?) "Carmen Electra " and start scrolling down the results of pictures. No.. It wasn't what I first did but its a perfectly good example. I dare you to do so right now and then read the rest

Point is, that's the reason I gave some more time to Bing and now the results are million times better than they used to be and the fact its not as freakin dry as Google looks cause lets face it. Its ugly. "but its a search engine..." yeah windows is also just a platform if you wanna put it that way but we rather have it look like 7 than XP all over again. Simply just cant go back. Give Bing another go and see if you like it.

Sorry for wasting your time Thank you for reading and like i said.. This is purely my opinion. Personally I dont give a crap about what Google and MS have to say/argue about. For all i care google has fucked up in WAY too many lvls ( stolen code to stolen emails/data with their wireless drivebys x.x ) so its why I cant defend them in this case. Search engine is about our convenience so dont take sides. Try them and go with what you like. I do prefer Bing even if i still have to turn to Google 5% ( only ) of the times I search for something. Which is quite amazing progress for Bing or any other search engine if you ask me. Cheers

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]gogogadgetliver[/nom]Why does everyone just regurgitate this without investigating?Bing is watching the behavior of the Bing Bar users. Google just made a synthetic result that would normally never occur then impersonated a Bing Bar user to "upload" the data into Bings ranking engine. The test is only valid within the parameters of the test itself.Bing did something pretty innovative and clever that Google again didn't think of first and they are floundering in a temper tantrum that reeks of childish insecurity.The Blogosphere meanwhile is swallowing this tripe and giving a free PR ride to Google (who let's face it is probably the biggest IP thief on the planet).Here is the REAL response from Microsoft which is not reported anywhere..http/www.bing.com/community/site [...] aight.aspx[/citation]

well what it sounds like to me, bing takes goggle searches, en mass, and rehashes it.
less work on microsoft, and google, if it innovates, only improves its competition.

google has the right to be @#%#ed about this.

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]manos[/nom]I would like to state my opinion but for those of you hating MS so badly or are google lovers for some reason please don't read my opinion cause you will waste yours and other readers' time, having to read your pointless replies.Ive been using for ages like most of us Google. I always hoped it wouldn't look so "dry" anymore ( same reason I am excited for the new Bios in Mobos like Asus' Maximus IV Extreme ). Its already having that MS-DOS feeling in it. Was the reason I ever used Bing a couple of times back in the days and I saw how poor the results are. I gave it another go a couple of months later. Still sucked and I instantly went back to find through Google what i was looking for. Another couple of months later I needed to find something in video and picture results. Well... If you haven't tried Bing for that matter its ace. The results system it uses for pics and videos etc are SO useful, so pretty and convenient. Try Binging ( lol?) "Carmen Electra " and start scrolling down the results of pictures. No.. It wasn't what I first did but its a perfectly good example. I dare you to do so right now and then read the rest Point is, that's the reason I gave some more time to Bing and now the results are million times better than they used to be and the fact its not as freakin dry as Google looks cause lets face it. Its ugly. "but its a search engine..." yeah windows is also just a platform if you wanna put it that way but we rather have it look like 7 than XP all over again. Simply just cant go back. Give Bing another go and see if you like it.Sorry for wasting your time Thank you for reading and like i said.. This is purely my opinion. Personally I dont give a crap about what Google and MS have to say/argue about. For all i care google has fucked up in WAY too many lvls ( stolen code to stolen emails/data with their wireless drivebys x.x ) so its why I cant defend them in this case. Search engine is about our convenience so dont take sides. Try them and go with what you like. I do prefer Bing even if i still have to turn to Google 5% ( only ) of the times I search for something. Which is quite amazing progress for Bing or any other search engine if you ask me. Cheers[/citation]

i would rather have an xp look and feel with the upgraded kernel, i cant stand windows 7, and over the last year, there hast been one time i used it (i have to at least 3 times a week) that i don't wish death on its designers.

i have gone WAY passed the point of the time i should have gotten use to it, i just hate it.

 

[swamprat]

[citation][nom]f-14[/nom]should have stuck around to reading the user comments at the bottom of that very artile as 2 people debunked everything claimed by microsoft in about a heartbeat.a great way to show this would be to use a few ficticious word phrases. use one word phrase on a linux system with firefox, use another word phrase on a linux system with IE8 and another word with linux and chrome. repeat on a windows machine with new ficticious word phrases and same search engines.proof would be in the results[/citation]

I really don't see what the issue is if all they're doing is comparing (1) search string entered in the bing toolbar and (2) the pages people went on to. Using IE8 is a bit cheeky, but again they're collecting factual data on where people go after a search, the only difference is that they're not just using their own search tool. As long as people can opt out, which I'd be highly surprised if they couldn't, then that's just MS being sensible.

Does Google not track similar things through its toolbar, search boxes and Chrome? It seems surprising if they don't.

The reason that despite using lots of sources they followed Google's in the test would, I suspect, be since they deliberately picked an unlikely combination of terms. Thus the only users of that combination were the people at Google doing the test and so their movements were the most common for that combination of search terms. If Bing always exactly copied the search order of Google, directed its search through Google, collected data without users' permission or something along those lines, then yes, something would be wrong. Otherwise, what's the issue?

 

[Guest]

Bing what is that ,never heard about it. Google rules..

 

[hebe]

[citation][nom]f-14[/nom]should have stuck around to reading the user comments at the bottom of that very artile as 2 people debunked everything claimed by microsoft in about a heartbeat.a great way to show this would be to use a few ficticious word phrases. use one word phrase on a linux system with firefox, use another word phrase on a linux system with IE8 and another word with linux and chrome. repeat on a windows machine with new ficticious word phrases and same search engines.proof would be in the results[/citation]

Google put together specific search phrases and results, deliberately designed to be outlandishly unlikely search terms/results... And then they force fed these searches/results to Bing through IE and the Bing Toolbar (after opting in for sending feedback). They then did this many times, probably across multiple server farms (to simulate real people searching). Bing then automatically spotted that links had been clicked (including the google search button), and the words they contained.

As no one would ever have searched for whatever searches Google setup, of course these few user searches would be highly ranked in the data on the terms being looked for. Think of it this way...

You're at a party full of doctors, and you hear a term like "seronegative spondyloarthropathy" being used over and over again. You have no idea what it means, or how it is relevant to the world. Now move a few months ahead, and you spot the term in the newspaper (or perhaps a friend brings it up for whatever reason). What is your first thought? Probably not, "let me get out the dictionary". Instead, you'd probably think: "Oh, I heard that from a bunch of doctors, it's probably a medical condition". You would base the continuation of your reading or talking on that tidbit of knowledge, even though more insight is available through other research.

Bing is simply imitating this, because it makes perfect sense in a human world, one Google is going out of their way to distort.

 

[djackson_dba]

[citation][nom]mayne92[/nom]...is your protagonist to your statement the same douche-bag company who steals open-source code verbatim and slaps a copyright on it...gets caught...and says there must be some mistake? Is it also the same company that advertised AND fooled 99% of Tom's readers and the author itself saying that Google is "spying" on you with what you type from the chrome address bar and showed demonstrations of such but yet FAILED to mention that the Bing search in IE does exactly the same thing? I just can't help but laugh at Tom's reader's who say they are "geeks" but yet make some of the stupidest comments on the net...you being one. Congrats.[/citation]

Mine was an attempt at levity indicated as such at the end of my statement and I may have failed.

Yours was an attempt to be an arse at which you succeeded in grand style.

Both companies are ruthless and I would not ever defend either one. If you have spent any time in software development and have not seen that every single company out there steals ideas, source code, look and feel, employees, well then you have not been looking very hard.

 

[zak_mckraken]

That's why I use Ask Jeeves!

 

[gogogadgetliver]

[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]well what it sounds like to me, bing takes goggle searches, en mass, and rehashes it.less work on microsoft, and google, if it innovates, only improves its competition.google has the right to be @#%#ed about this.[/citation]

That's not at all what happened but it's *exactly* what Google is trying to get everyone to believe. You're on Toms so fair chance you're a clever fellow. Go dig deep on what's actually happening and you'll see.

 

[gogogadgetliver]

[citation][nom]sseyler[/nom]If you're not going to respond in a constructive way, don't respond at all. You've turned to ad hominem, which, despite showing that you're probably not an astroturfer, shows that you're likely overly-dictated by emotional hot states.[/citation]

I was actually defending myself by pointing out an ad hominem. Scroll back up a couple from the original post. I'm apparently wrong not by virtue of my argument but because if I side with Microsoft I must be some shill or fanboy or some other tripe.

I have faith that anyone with an open mind who digs into the facts of this will see what's going on. I also have faith that there are few who will bother.