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Google: Bing Is Cheating, Copying Our Search Results

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Re: Google: Bing Is Cheating, Copying Our Search Results

#61

Post by brudgers »

Nitramp wrote: post #52

"Is this illegal?" IANAL, but in certain jurisdictions, most certainly yes . Many countries have copyright laws that protect compilations of things that are individually not worthy of copyright, for example telephone books. Copying down an individual telephone book entry is of course not a copyright violation, but copying the whole listing in a systematic fashion is. I'd guess that this law applies to search engine r…

IANALE, but in the US where both Google and Microsoft are headquartered, directory listings are not protected by copyright (though the book itself can be).

Re: Google: Bing Is Cheating, Copying Our Search Results

#62

Post by random42 »

gyardley wrote: post #38
random42 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are misunderstanding the word, 'Copy'. Here, it does not mean like "3-D movies is a great idea, lets copy it from avatar" . Its more on the lines on "This code is great, lets copy it" . Copy == getting inspired by brilliance of an idea and implement on your own in the first case. Copy == stealing in the latter case. Copying (Ctrl C+ Ctrl V), google search results is theft, not "getting inspired" from previous bod…

No one's stealing Google's code. Here, it means 'we have evidence, given to us by our users who agreed to share their web traffic with us, that showing this result for this query is a great idea -- so let's do that.' People obtain data on their competitors' performance all the time and tailor their products accordingly. It's not theft, it's competitive intelligence.

> People obtain data on their competitors' performance all the time and tailor their products accordingly. It's not theft, it's competitive intelligence.

Yes, but in this case, its more like claiming competitors product (the search result), as your own in your product directly. I would consider it a theft.

Re: Google: Bing Is Cheating, Copying Our Search Results

#63

Post by justlearning »

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #50

I had a front row seat for this test. I believe the experiment we ran provides conclusive proof. I'm on a panel with a representative from Bing later today and I'll ask Bing about this directly.

I can't argue about the legal vs illegal. I sure would like to tell the bing team that they should better google in their attempts. This strategy is mere copying into- 'look, I am as good as google'. Microsoft never learns from past do they??

Re: Google: Bing Is Cheating, Copying Our Search Results

#64

Post by Nitramp »

brudgers wrote: post #61
Nitramp wrote: post #52

"Is this illegal?" IANAL, but in certain jurisdictions, most certainly yes . Many countries have copyright laws that protect compilations of things that are individually not worthy of copyright, for example telephone books. Copying down an individual telephone book entry is of course not a copyright violation, but copying the whole listing in a systematic fashion is. I'd guess that this law applies to search engine r…

IANALE, but in the US where both Google and Microsoft are headquartered, directory listings are not protected by copyright (though the book itself can be).

I assume that Microsoft displayed these search results in e.g. Germany as well, where directory listings do enjoy copyright protection. So if they wanted, they probably could sue.

Re: Google: Bing Is Cheating, Copying Our Search Results

#65

Post by stcredzero »

amalcon wrote: post #57
raganwald wrote: post #15

Hmmm. Let's say that Bing sets up a script that sends queries to Google and then records the results. That's clearly copying. But what Bing does is when you use its toolbar, it watches what you do and uses that information to rank results. Is that really copying? It showed Google's Honeypot page because Google's engineers were clicking on the Honeypot page with the toolbar installed. That isn't copying Google's resul…

There are browser toolbars that aren't spyware? I'd think anyone likely to actually hear about this would have already been assuming that all browser toolbars are spyware.

It might be a good exercise to chase down old posts of people who wrote the first browser toolbars, as well as the browser infrastructure that made them possible. We can contrast the speculation on why they might have been a good idea with the actual result. Not as a way to trash them, but as an exercise in how smart people can miss the mark.

Re: Google: Bing Is Cheating, Copying Our Search Results

#66

Post by Matt_Cutts »

raganwald wrote: post #59
Matt_Cutts wrote: post #50

I had a front row seat for this test. I believe the experiment we ran provides conclusive proof. I'm on a panel with a representative from Bing later today and I'll ask Bing about this directly.

The article suggests that the Bing toolbar monitors what its user click and uses that information to improve Bing search results. Is that what you have conclusively proved? I'm interested in another experiment. If you set up a honeypot, search for the term, but never click on the link, does the honeypot start showing up in Bing? The article doesn't say whether you tried this. Did you try it? Are Bing scraping your re…

Anyone can test that Microsoft's software sends the clicks back to Microsoft, although I believe Microsoft sends the data back by SSL, so it's harder to verify even that than you'd expect.

Google's search results are blocked in robots.txt, so I don't believe Bing has been able to crawl our search results directly. All the evidence points to users' clicks on Google, which are then sent to Microsoft.

Microsoft has (so far) declined to admit whether our allegation is true. Getting them to talk about exactly what they do and what software they use or don't use would be the easiest way. I'd like them to confirm or deny, which is why I wanted to go to this search panel later today and ask them.

Re: Google: Bing Is Cheating, Copying Our Search Results

#68

Post by Matt_Cutts »

kgermino wrote: post #58
Matt_Cutts wrote: post #50

I had a front row seat for this test. I believe the experiment we ran provides conclusive proof. I'm on a panel with a representative from Bing later today and I'll ask Bing about this directly.

Please keep us posted as best you can.

I believe the search panel with Google and Bing will be live-streaming, so anyone can tune in. It's by a group called Big Think.

Re: Google: Bing Is Cheating, Copying Our Search Results

#69

Post by samwise »

The real question should be why is Google not doing this. Bing seems to be learning from what results users choose and improving their results.

Seems like a no brainer, unless i missed something.

I also really like this for some reason. It's very ... gangster. Shows that bing is scrappy and willing to bend the rules.

That being said, i will still continue using Google.

Re: Google: Bing Is Cheating, Copying Our Search Results

#70

Post by poacher69 »

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #66
raganwald wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article suggests that the Bing toolbar monitors what its user click and uses that information to improve Bing search results. Is that what you have conclusively proved? I'm interested in another experiment. If you set up a honeypot, search for the term, but never click on the link, does the honeypot start showing up in Bing? The article doesn't say whether you tried this. Did you try it? Are Bing scraping your re…

Anyone can test that Microsoft's software sends the clicks back to Microsoft, although I believe Microsoft sends the data back by SSL, so it's harder to verify even that than you'd expect. Google's search results are blocked in robots.txt, so I don't believe Bing has been able to crawl our search results directly. All the evidence points to users' clicks on Google, which are then sent to Microsoft. Microsoft has (so…

are you claiming that google never scrapes bing search results pages? or any other search result pages?
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