Google Accuses Bing of Googling Results
As reported on Engadget, Google employees setup what they are calling a Bing Sting operation to catch Microsoft copying Google’s search results. What does that even mean? It means that Google employees have too much time on their hands. How did it work? Well, first they would find searches that yielded no results like mbrzxpgjys, hiybbprqag, and indoswiftjobinproduction. Then they attached these searches to a live webpage in the Google database. This caused the selected webpage to populate in the Google search of the aforementioned fake words. They then proceeded to repeatedly Google the term and click the link. They did this in IE with both the Bing search bar installed and suggested sites turned on.
The trap was set to catch Bing piggybacking on Google’s search results using IE’s data collection tools. It took around a week, but about 7-9% of the fake words set out as bait started populating the corresponding site in Bing searches. Google is claiming that this is proof that Microsoft is lifting search results using Internet explorer and the Bing Toolbar. It certainly proves something, what that is is still uncertain. Microsoft provided both an official and unofficial answer to the claim, both of which indicate that they don’t steal search results.
Its possible that both companies are right. Google’s experiment proves that some of the data collected by Microsoft’s software makes it’s way to Bing. However, the planted links being populated in Bing could be incidental. A 7-9% success rate is a small enough number that the data gathered by the Bing Bar and suggested sites may not be direct search results but more a loose correlation of two pieces of info. The logic built into the Bing search could do the rest of the work by putting the pieces together on the back end. If Microsoft was directly lifting Google searches, the percentage would have been much much higher.
So, is this cheating? That is not an argument Microsoft wants to have. This proves that they are gathering data and very quickly using it for their other products, but does it mean that they are stealing search results? My gut tells me no, but I’m sure Microsoft is working on something to get Google back. Either way you look at it, Microsoft is the bad guy here. Whether they are actually stealing results or intruding into user’s data enough to draw the exact same conclusions that Google had to plant, Microsoft’s big brother complex is really in the spotlight here.
I’m sure more will come of this story.
