back to article Google to Microsoft: You're stealing our search results!

Google has accused Microsoft of copying its search results, after running a "sting operation" that indicates Redmond's Internet Explorer software is tracking what searchers find on Google and using this data to tweak results on Bing. Microsoft indicates this is indeed happening – but on a small scale. Google first made the …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Innovation

    "But copying is not innovation, in my book.”

    That depends predominantly on your legal budget, doesn't it?

    1. Greg J Preece

      Other possible circumstances

      For example, if your company logo is fruit-based, and you're well in with the journalistic media at large...

      1. ThomH

        @Greg J Preece

        Apple have paid for all the technology they've acquired but do we really have to drag them into it? They don't even run a search engine.

        1. Greg J Preece
          Troll

          @ThomH

          <<< Maybe I should have used this icon.

    2. Chad H.
      Alert

      But Copying is Innovating

      I mean, thats what Microsoft has been calling copying for about 2 decades now!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Gates Halo

        Sire

        Make that 3 decades (plus)

    3. Graham Marsden
      Pint

      As the old students' maxim has it...

      ... if you copy from three sources, that's *research*!

  2. Michael B.

    Who was snooping on whom?

    So lets get this straight Google was snooping on Bing's search results when they noticed that Bing was snooping on Google's search results.

    1. A Non e-mouse Silver badge
      Thumb Down

      Er, no.

      I think google were comparing their product with the opposition's.

      In business, you tend to do this, so you can try and keep ahead of the opposition. (and ideally, make more money than them)

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @ Michael B

      Not really, Google were keeping abreast of the marketplace and noticed something "suspicious" that they wanted to check out.

      It is like supermarkets using mystery shoppers to check out the competition mixed with the old Victorian naturalist habit of "making shit up" in their tales of far away places to check if others were just copying their work.

      1. The Fuzzy Wotnot
        Happy

        "Google were keeping abreast of the marketplace"

        Ah, so I was "keeping abreast" of my neighbour's habit of subathing in the nude...when the coppers were called and found me in the tree at the end of my garden, using a pair of binoculars?!

        Dammit! I knew there was a better phrase than simply "spying"!

    3. Inachu
      Grenade

      Ha!

      Oh please.

      Even on the first day years ago google was out and running in the wild live it then was still getting better search results than any search engine made or supported by microsoft.

    4. doperative

      lets get this straight

      > So lets get this straight Google was snooping on Bing's search results when they noticed that Bing was snooping on Google's search results.

      No, Google noticed that certain results returned by Bing was a too close match to Google results. To verify this they created search queries and this verified that the Bing toolbar was spying on endusers.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    burp

    * burp *

  4. Alan Brown Silver badge
    Grenade

    The REAL story...

    Is that MS is quietly feeding user data back to Redmond without authorisation from inside MSIE.

    If other packages do this, it's called "spyware" and gets LEO interested.

    Apart from tweaking Bing results, what ELSE are they doing with the search terms and results?

    1. Greg J Preece

      LEO?

      Low Earth Orbit?

      Low Emissions Optimum?

      Long-term Ecosystem Observatory?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Joke

        No...

        Lyons Electonic Office - of course!

        1. BorkedAgain

          New spelling standards

          Local Educashun Othority

    2. Chad H.

      Well

      They R in ur Computer, stealing ur Pornz.

    3. Shaun 1
      FAIL

      Yes it does

      if you install the bing toolbar and opt in to sending data back

    4. Hipster Dufus

      The REAL story

      They stole that from Google Chrome.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Must be.

      A relative who works for MS tells me it is a disciplinary offence.for MS employees to use Google at work. How else can they pilfer Google results? They either ignore the dominant competitor, sack themselves or spy on users. Let's take a wild guess...

  5. BongoJoe
    Headmaster

    eh?

    Do any of these people actually speak a known language?

  6. Charles Manning
    Coat

    "On a small scale"

    Well that's pretty much the whole of Bing then.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Actually, the reral story.....

    ....is that Google have now publically admitted to manually adjusting their search results, this is something they have claimed for years they not only didn't do, but *couldn't* do..........

    1. A Non e-mouse Silver badge
      FAIL

      Read the article, not just the headline

      If you read the original article which has all the background info, and not just the El Reg summary, you'll see that google had to explicitly add in code to do this, and they're about to remove it.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I see the next Google ad

    Google - cause even BING knows whats best

  9. ElReg!comments!Pierre

    Android fashioned after WHAT now?

    "Android, you might argue, was fashioned after a certain Apple handset"

    That's a rater, erm, "interesting" assertion, care to elaborate? Android is a Linux distro which, according to Google, had been in development for quite a while before the iPhone came out. Given the timeframe, I would say that either Google can be trusted on that, or they work very fast indeed. And it's not like Android and iOS have much in common either. You could even argue that some of the features that iOS gained with subsequent version were actually "fashioned after" Android features that the original iOS lacked and that the users wanted.

    Now the design of the first (HTC-made) handset on which Android was shipped might have been following the trend, set by the iPhone *among others*.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Paris Hilton

      i beg to differ

      elaborate on *among others*. iPhone was released middle of 2007, first android came end of 2008. Only programming the basis of a phone OS doesn't make the OS, no user cares really about what's under the UI as long as it work properly. Nokia had the best basis in its Symbian and that didn't help. I'm pretty sure that Google worked very hard in between 2007 and 2008 to replicate the good parts of iOS.

      While checking your inciting answer I came across

      http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/05/20/google.io.keynote.says.jobs.vision.is.draconian/. It's funny it seems that the future looks mostly monochromatic given the surge in android phones on the market. it's good for the competition. And makes the iPhone more special again- after all not everybody is driving Mercedes.

      Paris, because she knows she can aks google-God to check the verity of her answer

      1. Phil Hare 2
        Stop

        Stop it.

        They're all just phones. It's down to personal choice: iPhone users like the interface on their phone, I like the fact that I can watch iPlayer and DiVX's on my Galaxy S and my friend likes his Nokia because it's tough as hell, cost £10 and has a torch on top.

        As for "And makes the iPhone more special again- after all not everybody is driving Mercedes.", that statement says way more about you than it does the iPhone.

        Now, can we leave the phone talk please?

    2. ThomH

      @ElReg!comments!Pierre

      It's not just according to Google — they acquired Android (the company, working on the OS) in 2005. That would seem to establish that work was in progress before the iPhone came out.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @Pierre

        Remember that Google had someone sat on the Apple board of directors during the whole time that the iPhone was being developed. During this time, Google also bought the Android company.

        Is this ethical? Make up your own minds...

    3. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      What i'm struggleing to understand

      Is how software (Android) can be fashioned after hardware (a certain apple handset).

      Can anyone please enlighten me?

    4. Seanie Ryan
      Black Helicopters

      @ElReg!comments!Pierre - think a little, please

      "[Android] had been in development for quite a while before the iPhone came out"

      are you trying to say the iphone development started *just* before it came out??

      It was in development about 4 years before it came out, at least.

      and everyone know what the early Android interface looked like. (pre june 2007)

      anyway, back on topic... google were looking at bing to see if they should be copying what they are doing and found out that bing was already at it. imitation/flattery

  10. Shaun 1

    The quote I found most interesting:

    "The PageRank feature [on the Google toolbar] sends back URLs, but we’ve never used those URLs or data to put any results on Google’s results page. We do not do that, and we will not do that".

    Well then what is it using this data for?

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge
      Alert

      A wild guess...

      ... if it's not for fine-tuning search then it's for fine-tuning AdWords.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      what is it using this data for

      Presumably to compile statistics of interest to marketers, rather than to directly influence search results.

    3. Colin Millar

      Its collecting it because it can

      However - they come over all ethical with their

      "We do not do that, and we will not do that"

      Well of course not - where's the money in that.

  11. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Steve Roper
      Flame

      Re: It gets harder to SEO sites...

      Good. I hope Google end up making it fucking impossible. Then maybe search results will return relevant sites instead of those whose owners paid crooks like you to fiddle search results to get them to the top.

      1. Woodgar

        Re: It gets harder to SEO sites...

        Couldn't agree more.

        It's all the SEO wankers that flood Google with their crap price comparison and associated shopping bollocks that makes it harder and harder to find anything useful.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @woodgar

          "It's all the SEO wankers that flood Google with their crap price comparison and associated shopping bollocks that makes it harder and harder to find anything useful."

          That type of worthless crap was extremely annoying, definitely, but it seems to have come down quite a bit (though it's far from disappeared) since around the middle of last year- I'd guess around the point that Google rolled out their "Caffeine" update.

      2. This post has been deleted by its author

        1. Twilight

          SEO is never legit

          SEO by definition is gaming the system and cheating to get the page you want to the top of searches.

          If you mean you advise clients on how to construct *useful* web pages that get to the top on their own merit without playing keyword games (and similar), good for you. I wouldn't call that SEO.

          If, on the other hand, you do any gaming of keywords or content specifically to increase page visibility (especially for searches the page does not directly relate to), you are part of the problem.

          1. This post has been deleted by its author

          2. This post has been deleted by its author

      3. Andy Fletcher

        Re:I hope Google end up making it fucking impossible

        I take it that, by the same token, you object to companies like WHSmith, M&S & Tesco occupying prime retail locations, just because they can afford it and have made the effort to procure them.

    2. Graham Marsden
      WTF?

      "a brilliantly elegant core search formula...

      "...that yields the most useful result almost every single time"

      Err, which search engine is this, then?

      It certainly isn't Google when so many searches seem to have been "gamed" to the top...

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Innovation...

    The people, process, and technology which bring new companies to life... then leaves shortly after to be replaced by R&D... Rip Off and Duplicate.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Google is a PC!

    That top search result was their idea!

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Rooly Trooly? Jee WoW

    I am curious, when innovation stagnates to duplication and replication, what lies at the end of that?

    Splitting the atom? No.

    Parallel Quantum Universes? No.

    Reruns of Gilligan's Island for all eternity and eating nothing but Kentucky Fried Kitten - for all eternity? Probably.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Are they copying results

    The experimental method is horrible and very weighted to suggesting something that may not be true. So Google insert a single result to a frivalous query that would not be made under normal circumstances. Click on said frivalous result as it is top then it starts appearing on Bing.

    However why not try clicking on the second result and seeing if having ignored the first result that appears at the top of Bing?

    Or even better do the search then type a completely different url into the address bar and see if that appears on bing?

    And having done these try doing the search, click on the top, back out after 5 seconds and click on the second result. What would appear top on Bing?

    All they have demonstrated is that MS are tracking your route when surfing and trying to use it to add relevance to their search, not that they are directly copying Google. Which as it stands seems like a sensible metric to use, if however they are copying Google then they will clearly never get better than Google.

    All reads like a very very cheap shot from Google to me, either that or their engineers really are too lazy to come up with a decent test.

  16. Tron Silver badge

    This is Google and Microsoft. There is no moral high ground.

    This copying stuff malarkey. Is that like if you were to copy Oracle Java code?

    Man up and settle these things properly. Pistols at dawn or return to your cubicles and stop your whining.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Headmaster

    Users, not algorithms

    What are these people going on about Pagerank and algorithms? A large part of why Google's ranking is good is because they have ton of users (and employees) clicking through the links: more (and better) clicks = higher rank.

    Without the users this is impossible for Microsoft to match, so no wonder they have to resort to less traditional methods..

    Let's not forget that until the user base really picked up Google was quite bad at ranking and was easily outperformed by Alltheweb or even Altavista. It caught on due to its simple interface and less intrusive text ads.

  18. Herby

    Google V. Microsoft

    Works for me. I'll sit on the sidelines while they go at each other. Exciting watching if you ask me. It will be quite entertaining. As they say here in the USA (or at least they did at one time) "Film at 11" (it refers to the late news!)

    1. LaeMing
      Go

      Divorce tactics required

      But Google bought me the big Lego police station. What will you (Microsoft) buy me to prove you luv me more?

  19. Flybert
    Joke

    Microsoft ...

    said Bing director Stefan Weitz. "The overarching goal is to do a better job determining the intent of the search so we can provide the most relevant answer to a given query"

    ... guilty of plagiarism at least then ..

  20. Mr. Fatuous

    Shocker

    Search engine searches other search engines shocker

  21. JDX Gold badge

    Morality...

    Is anyone actually claiming this is illegal? It seems to me if I use a search engine I want the best results possible. In the old days, engines like Altavista even ran the same query on other engines explicitly.

  22. BorkedAgain
    Coat

    Well...

    Imitation is supposed to be the sincerest form of flattery. Google should be delighted that MS consider them so worthy of copying...

    Mine's the one that looks just like yours. Thanks.

  23. Adrian Challinor
    Coat

    SHOCK - HORROR

    I am shocked. Absolutely aghast and speechless.

    There is a website, SearchEngineLand, dedicated to search engines?

    Well, it's OK,. the site has suffered the El Reg effect and is not returning pages at present, so that's OK. I will have to go to the Google cache and ..... oh, that's a circular argument, isn't it!

    Mines the one with the MSDN book on Search Engines for Profit

  24. The Fuzzy Wotnot
    Happy

    Indeed...

    "But copying is not innovation, in my book."

    No! It's the Microsoft way and always has been!

    Why is it a surprise MS cannot stop copying other people's stuff? For a company that is so down on piracy and 'intellectual theft' they sure do knock a lot of other peoples ideas off!

  25. Chris Hunt
    FAIL

    Fact check

    > The Google toolbar, for instance, collects urls used to calculate Mountain View's famous PageRank.

    No it doesn't.

    Google compile a list of URLs by just crawling the web, and calculates PR by analysing the links between them. The toolbar isn't involved, or required.

    What the toolbar *does* do is tell you the PR of the page you're viewing. That's kinda difficult to do without telling Google which page that is. Google say they don't use these URLs for any other purpose, and I'm not aware of anybody providing any evidence to the contrary.

  26. Inachu
    FAIL

    Bing is pure crap.

    How can bing a pure crap search engine get awsome search results in over a 4 month period?

    IT CAN'T!! and it can only do that by sending click data from google.

    I have never liked bing but honestly would return to bing once in a while just to barf and giggle on the search results. Bing does not use any scientific method at all and must rely of click through data from google.

    Microsoft you are a big pile lump of poo.

  27. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    Well that makes for MS this month, when's the third ?

    First we learned that MS forgot how to implement IMAP in its WP7 phone thingy, now we learn that it can't do search properly either and is scraping results off Google.

    Two bad points in two days, that must be a record of sorts.

    In any case, I'm interested in finding out what I may read tomorrow.

  28. Britt Johnston
    Welcome

    best, not most moral

    Meissen copied china, bringing the technology to Europe. There were countless European knock-offs, but the finish line came when the chinese started selling copies of Meissen wares.

    Google has so much room for improvement that Bing can't become the best by copying it. Maybe they could do a deal with Baidu?

  29. smug
    Welcome

    And the issue is what?

    Company sees how users use publicly-open, profit-making service in order to improve its own product. Sounds like it's only one of a basket of metrics they use, too, which is why Google only got a few of the tests to work out as they wanted.

    Amusing to see Google complaining about other people using available information in the pursuit of making money. I'm bemused they went with the accusations when their case was so relatively weak, as well.

  30. doperative

    MicrosoftSpeak

    MicrosoftSpeak: 'opt-in customer data'

    English: spying on customers, steal competitors data

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    MSN/Bing is just tricks

    Don't forget MS's long standing practice of using bots to flood server logs with fake referrers and IE user agent strings that make it look like people have found your site thanks to searching MSN/Bing.

    They've been pulled up about this before and claim it's just a method to verify the site in question is real or some such nonsense. It's done purely to make MSN/Bing show up in Analog and other stats tools that show search engines in pie charts and other graphs.

    So MS give their users 'fake' results in the form of old Google photocopies, and then they give websites fake perceptions of how much they're relying on the search engine. This is MS, not some Internet scam run by a known conman operating out of a south-Pacific island.

  32. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wasn't really copying results...

    It was more like:

    1.) Invite users to enter into an opt-in data collection exercise

    2.) Report people's search terms and then the URL they click on (i.e. the link that the user deems most helpful)

    3.) Feed this information into your ranking algorithms.

    Note, at no point in these steps has Bing spoken to Google, nor does it really need to know which search engine was used.

    In this case, Google staff entered the opt-in data collection exercise, fed obscure fake search terms and clicked links. As the search terms were so unusual, Bing couldn't provide a natural match (neither would Google without faking them), and most likely fell back to the opt-in data, which was tainted.

    Some might say that they're copying Google's search results - but another way of looking at it is that users are essentially providing a search term, and a URL which they decided was most appropriate.

  33. Don Mitchell

    The lessons

    The lessons from this seem to be 1) never install anyone's browser toolbar and 2) don't run Chrome. If you don't want your info being uploaded. I stopped using Chrome when it uploaded info to Google that caused it to merge some of my accounts that I wanted to keep separate. It also stuck one of my email addresses on my blogger page then, and not the correct email. Google just works too had at gathering and correlating information about users.

  34. doperative

    Microsoft accuses Google of click fraud

    "Microsoft is now accusing Google of using a form of click fraud to set up its Bing Sting" ..

    "What Google did was clever, I'll give them that. They basically took a bunch of nonsensical words, like xlgr493, and then modified their own algorithm to point the search query for that particular word to a real site. So xlgr493 refers to kittycat.com.

    Then about 20 of them went to their houses at night, and, probably over a glass of merlot, started using the Bing toolbar to query Google for that particular nonsensical word. Then the next day they showed that if you searched for that nonsensical word on Bing, the faked site would appear as the first result" ...

    http://content.usatoday.com/communities/technologylive/post/2011/02/microsoft-says-google-used-click-fraud-to-pull-of-bing-sting/1

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    O Mr Shum!

    Microsoft Bing vice president Harry Shum:

    "What we saw in today’s story was a spy-novelesque stunt to generate extreme outliers in tail query ranking,

    Yes, but can't we that assume your business model isn't based on successfully hitting 'a few outliers'? Getting caught shoplifting at the Pick 'n' Mix counter doesn't mean you don't have 40,000 tins of red salmon and chopped ham in your living room!

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    I call BS!

    This should be intresting, if anyone has looked at my previous post they will notice i quite like MS in most aspects so with that in mind im calling this whole thing BS!

    Yup theres more at work then meets the eye, no doubt both companies have been a bit naughty but the reason i call BS on this story is because Bing is a pile of shite

    Ive tried it several times and it never brings up what i want, somehow, with googles ability to read my mind it usually gets almost everything i search in the top 5, Bing will be in the top 5 also... top 5 pages that is.

    So yes, not all as it seems me thinks.

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