Google accuses Bing of 'copying'

[crustyasp46]

Google accuses Bing of 'copying' its search results:

Google has accused Microsoft of cheating, following an investigation known as the 'Bing Sting'.

Google engineers created 100 nonsensical queries such as "hiybbprqag" and inserted a fake result for each.

Within weeks, the same results began to appear on its rival Microsoft's Bing search engine.

Microsoft denies copying Google and accused Google of conducting "spy-novelesque stunts".

Harry Shum, vice president of Bing, said: "We do not copy Google's search results. We use multiple signals and approaches in ranking search results," he added.

"Opt-in programs like the toolbar help us with clickstream data, one of many input signals we and other search engines use to help rank sites," he added.

Cheap imitation

Bing returned the same result for 'hiybbprqug'
But Google's Amit Singhal told industry blog SearchEngineLand.com that it was "plain and simply cheating" and he detailed the sting operation in a long blog post.

He said Google decided to conduct its experiment after mis-spelt words and results were replicated on Bing.

"A search for 'hiybbprqug' on Bing returned a page about seating at a theatre in Los Angeles. As far as we know the only connection between the query and result is Google's result page," he said.

"We noticed that URLs from Google search results would later appear in Bing with increasing frequency," he went on.

He concluded that Microsoft was gathering data on what people search for on Google, via either Internet Explorer or the Bing Search toolbar.

"Some Bing results increasingly look like an incomplete, stale version of Google results - a cheap imitation," he said.

Search voice
Danny Sullivan, a search engine expert, has mixed feelings about what the experiment shows.

"On the one hand you could say it's incredibly clever. Why not mine what people are selecting as the top results on Google as a signal?" he wrote on his blog.

But he also said he had sympathy for Google's view that Bing is doing something wrong.

"Every search engine has its own 'search voice', a unique set of search results that it provides, based on its collection of documents and its own particular method of ranking those.

I think Bing should develop its own search voice without using Google's as a tuning fork," he added.

Wider issues for him include how Google went about setting up its honeypot trap to ensnare Bing and whether it was just a "clever way to distract from current discussions about its search quality".

Google has stressed that it has now removed the one-time code that it added to plant the fake pages.

Had any of its fake queries proved popular, it said that it would have removed the page they linked to.

Mr Sullivan also questioned how much consumers knew about the data capture that allowed Microsoft to gather Google's search results, either via Internet Explorer or the Bing toolbar.

"Do Internet Explorer users know that they might be helping Bing in the way Google alleges? Technically, yes. Explicitly, absolutely not," he said.

[Kherr]

I hope google takes microsoft down. :3

[Hot Trout]

Don't be too hasty there young Kherr, Google needs competition just as much as Microsoft does. If either of these companies had control it would not be good.

[crustyasp46]

Don't be too hasty there young Kherr, Google needs competition just as much as Microsoft does. If either of these companies had control it would not be good.

I agree, Google is now coming under the gun itself at present, the EU, is doing an investigation of some Google practices. As well in the past Google has had their wrist slapped on numerous occasions for questionable practices as well.

[Kherr]

Don't be too hasty there young Kherr, Google needs competition just as much as Microsoft does. If either of these companies had control it would not be good.

No no, I just mean with the whole search engine thing. It would be nice to see microsoft with more problems than the general user discrepancies. ;3

[crustyasp46]

EU investigates Google

THE MUCH AWAITED EU anti-trust investigation of the search outfit Google has been launched.
The European Commission said in a press release that it had opened a formal inquiry into Google following claims of unfavourable treatment from rival search engine companies.
The Commission will investigate whether Google has abused a dominant market position in online search by allegedly lowering the ranking of unpaid search results of competing services, which provide price comparisons.
Google is alleged to have given preferential placement to the results of its own search services in order to shut out competing services. The Commission will also look into allegations that Google lowered the 'Quality Score' for sponsored links of competing vertical search services. The Quality Score is one of the factors that determine the price paid to Google by advertisers.
While there is no legal deadline for the inquiry, it should take about six months to carry out.
The Commission's probe will also look at allegations that Google imposes exclusivity obligations on advertising partners, preventing them from placing certain types of competing ads on their web sites.
Other charges include claims that Google placed restrictions on the portability of online advertising campaign data to competing online advertising platforms.
Rivals have been moaning about Google using its huge market share as a weapon for ages so it was only a matter of time before the EU reacted.
Google insists that there is a lot of competition and that it competes with Amazon and Ebay for retail search enquiries, and social networking groups such as Facebook and Twitter were becoming an increasingly important source of sharing links.

[Kherr]

*Strokes his manly stubble*

Hmm... Google... You naughty child you... what did you get into again... :3

(If anyone understands what I mean by "again" gets 50 points)

[Guest]

Bing is a joke. Any my point is proven seeing how they are stealing off of google. Jeze