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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

#151

Post by forgotusername »

tommi wrote: post #143
encoderer wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's embarrassing for Google to complain about this. You FINALLY get a little competition on your turf and you try to make some big issue that, as a market leader, the product you produce is being watched, analyzed and in some ways incorporated by your competitor. There is no victim here. They are not taking your 1st result and copying it. They are taking the result the user clicked. Obviously you didn't predict that…

Just because you are big, doesn't prohibit you from exposing issues. We really don't know how much value Bing puts on clicks made on Google. Perhaps a lot? What's the Google's official stand on this?

Even Matt's allegation is softened by "I believe" here: there appears to be nothing that conclusively indicates Bing is solely targeting Google. For example, the observed behaviour could be a side-effect of a generic algorithm to extract and associate search queries with a user's click stream, which is only a minor variant of what Google itself does with its own toolbar.

If the case described above were true, then all Google has done here is to make inconclusive accusations and use the occasion to highlight its own dominance over search.

It seems to me this is just a cheap and slightly seedy PR stunt.

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

#152

Post by random42 »

brudgers wrote: post #104
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…

When identical inputs create identical outputs using different algorithms, it's reverse engineering not copying.

Except the algorithms are not really different. one algorithm is just a wrapper over the second algorithm. the crux of the matter is really in just second algo.

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

#153

Post by haberman »

encoderer wrote: post #122
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.

It's embarrassing for Google to complain about this. You FINALLY get a little competition on your turf and you try to make some big issue that, as a market leader, the product you produce is being watched, analyzed and in some ways incorporated by your competitor. There is no victim here. They are not taking your 1st result and copying it. They are taking the result the user clicked. Obviously you didn't predict that…

If it's beneath Google to complain about Microsoft riding on its coattails for the highly valuable "long tail" of queries, surely it's beneath Microsoft to sue Android manufacturers for competing in the smartphone space?

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/8b1ecaa2-cdb2-11df-9c82-00144feab4...

Would it have been better if Google had jumped straight to the questionable lawsuit part, like every other company seems to do when threatened on its own turf?

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

#154

Post by random42 »

brudgers wrote: post #104
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…

When identical inputs create identical outputs using different algorithms, it's reverse engineering not copying.

Except the algorithms are not really different. one algorithm is just a wrapper over the second algorithm. the crux of the matter is really in just second algo.

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

#156

Post by jerf »

tptacek wrote: post #6

"Is it illegal? Is it cheating? Is it unfair?" Who cares? Google already got everything it needed out of this situation: a gigantic PR win, and a morale boost for their own team. Well played.

I agree in principle, disagree in detail; this is a loss for Bing. Google isn't going to get much further benefit out of this but Bing is going to have egg on its face.

Discussing the hypotheticals of the situation as others are doing is interesting (serious), but irrelevant. The court of public opinion isn't going to care about that nuance and will find against Bing if this goes viral. All of the other defenses won't matter either, "everyone is doing this" and so on. Public opinion won't care.

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

#157

Post by random42 »

encoderer wrote: post #110
random42 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

No it's not. That's absurd. A clicked search result is a successful product. Bing is taking note of a competitors successful product and using that information in it's own decisions on the products (serps) it produces for it's users. This is a bunch of microsoft haters making hay over nothing at all. Quit whining. It's not theft, it's not any more privacy-offensive than anything Google does, get over it.

I agree with you 100% if that's the case, ( and matt Cutts ' comment suggests it is) . My argument were for the case if Bing were to crawl google results page, (programming equivalent of Searching on google and feeding results on own db as results for the term ), not considering user clicked information.

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

#158

Post by georgemcbay »

tptacek wrote: post #6

"Is it illegal? Is it cheating? Is it unfair?" Who cares? Google already got everything it needed out of this situation: a gigantic PR win, and a morale boost for their own team. Well played.

Not a PR win for Google from my point of view. I'm a huge Google fanboy (daily user of the search engine, Gmail, Google Apps, Android, Google Voice, etc), but this whole situation is a PR stain on them for me.

Firstly because I think they originally misunderstood the manner in which Bing's results were being influenced by their own, and then secondly because if they are going to complain about Microsoft collecting information about their user's usage patterns -- well, that's really, really hypocritical coming from Google. Lastly because the whole thing smacks of high school level gossip. If Microsoft is really doing something out of line, handle it in some other way than engaging in a gossipy blog war.

To reiterate, I'm actually a Google fan, I'm OK with trading some privacy for useful services, but if they are going to bang on Microsoft for collecting user usage information, well that's about the worst case of the pot calling the kettle black I've ever heard of in the tech industry.

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

#160

Post by NonMint »

I'm really curious as to how this is different than Bing using google's search results in some form of aggregate pageranking. If we assume that some arbitrary metric of "authenticity" exists for searches and a search for mbzrxpgjys results in results in a low (I don't think it's cheating, no where in the article does it claim that they aren't doing their own search, they are just using Google's results as part of their own search algorithm. Is that really such a crime?
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