Posted on 02/01/2011 4:52:40 PM PST by dayglored
A sting operation by Google reveals that Microsoft has been copying results from Google for its Bing search engine.
The search giant alleges that Microsoft has been using its Internet Explorer web browser and the Bing Search bar to harvest information on Google users, according to a lengthy report by Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land. Amit Singhal, a Google Fellow who oversees the search engine’s ranking algorithm, was crystal clear about the findings.
“Our testing has concluded that Bing is copying Google web search results,” Singhal told FoxNews.com.
Bing, although denying that they outright copy results, has all but admitted the claim. Director of Bing Stefan Weitz told FoxNews.com that the strategy is one of many that Microsoft uses to provide the best search results.
“We use multiple signals and approaches in ranking search results,” Weitz said. “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.”
Harry Shum, corporate vice president at Bing, spoke at a company event Tuesday, furthering these sentiments. “It’s not like we actually copy anything,” Shum said at the event. He claimed that competitors such as Google employ similar tactics. “We use the customer data to help improve the search experience.”
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Microsoft appears to be lifting user data, and sending it back to Microsoft Central (no great surprise there), but in particular they are taking search results from users who search with Google, and plugging the results into Bing's search algorithm.
That doesn't sound particularly kosher. I would have hoped for better, from a company with Microsoft's vast technical resources.
Sword: Not at all an Apple/Mac topic, but I thought you'd be interested.
Google conducts sting operations?
Who the hell do they think they are, Michael Bloomberg?
The trouble with messing with Google, even for Microsoft, is that they have plenty of money to sue and keep at it.
Heh. From TFA:
Google is understandably vexed. The company grew wary of potential copycats in October 2010 when engineers noticed that bizarre misspellings were returning the same set of results on both Google and Bing searches.Sounds entirely standard procedure to me. Honeypots are a standard tool in network security.Unsure, but suspicious, Google set up a trap. From December 17 to December 31, engineers inserted a “honeypot” result as the top result for specific search queries -- including, hiybbprqag, mbzrxpgiys, and indoswiftjobinproduction -- and waited to see if the same results would appear on Bing. Lo and behold, the identical results popped up.
Search engine with lipstick.
"Sanitation Engineering Specialist" == "garbage man"
SS, DD. A rose by any other name.
Yeah right, like Google doesn’t grab Bing searches conducted using THEIR “Chrome” browser. Or like Google doesn’t grab data off your WiFi network when one of its Google Earth cars passes by your house. The megalomaniacs doth protest too much.
At least give Microsoft credit for realizing that Bing is a pretty lame search engine and needs improving.
Gee, can Google sue? Are their results copyrighted or something? If so, I missed it, but maybe I did...
Has Microsoft or anyone else produced any evidence of this? And really, why would Google bother? Bing is acknowledged even by Microsoft to be a much lesser search engine.
GEEK FIGHT!!!....
Who cares about stealing search results. Google has gone so far beyond that its silly. Google doesn’t simply steal your search results. Google takes your wifi connection and steals whatever data they can find when they drive past your house!
It depends on how much they take and how they use it. Apparently Microsoft is using enough for Google to know they are using Google results.
Of course if you change anything in the search box, then all of your settings are lost, and you have to reset them again.
Just another case of Bill making the wrong guess about what his customers want.
Encrypted WiFi connections are private. Google can't "steal" your data if it's properly encrypted. All standard routers are capable of encryption. Use it.
Unencrypted WiFi connections are like postcards. Anyone can read them. There is nothing private about a postcard.
Google made a tactical error with regard to the WiFi connections. But the people who set up their own routers without encryption were stupid. Better that Google should connect to it, than that a kiddie-porn downloader should war-drive their connection and get them arrested.
Perspective is everything. Do you lock your front door? If so, you should enable encryption on your WiFi router. This is a very basic consideration.
How about a Google logo, done with Windows colors??
I see a couple angles to the story.
For those who hate Google but use it because it is better. Now you can have Google results while using Bing.
Another Microsoft employee came out and said that they have the right to collect and use information typed into a tool bar on IE, even if it happens to be a Google toolbar.
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