Microsoft: 'We do not copy Google's results' • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft: 'We do not copy Google's results'

#51

Post by gojomo » Tue, Feb 01, 2011, 8:40 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #23

kenjackson wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would potential employees take this negatively? This is exactly the type of thing I'd love to work on. Give me opt-in to your web browsing characteristics, and let me optimize your searches. Opt-in is the key. I'm certainly an odd one here, but I'm more inclined to use the Bing toolbar due to this, although the perf cost is still too high to use any toolbar, IMO. What would be nice is if the browsers had an open…

Because if Bing has to rely on Google Search's solutions to problems it should itself be able to solve, that implies it's inferior technology.

Perhaps 'inferior' in some dimensions, but trying harder with every scrap of legal data they can acquire. That's what I'd expect from any upstart against an entrenched leader, a leader with a long headstart and giant informational advantages via ubiquity and scale.

Google leverages every legal scrap of information they can get their hands on to improve their services – including the outlinks of every site they crawl, and clicks of users all over the net. If there's a legal way to observe the users and content of Google's sites for info about which other sites are good – and I haven't yet seen an allegation from Google that Microsoft is doing something illegal – why should any company refrain from using those signals, given Google's giant use of such info from elsewhere?

Re: Microsoft: 'We do not copy Google's results'

#52

Post by kenjackson » Tue, Feb 01, 2011, 8:52 PM UTC

rfugger wrote: post #50

mikeryan wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there are many people out there that don't believe Google's technology is superior. Personally, as someone who's held MS stock for a while, I kind of find this tactic to be deviously brilliant. For a dog thats been back in the race for a while I'm okay with them leveraging every angle they have to catch up. There's a ton of mindshare to compete with at Google. This seems to be a fairly effective short c…

Yes, it was clever, until Google caught them at it and started using it to undercut their "mindshare".

I put even money that this helps their mindshare. For people that use Google/Bing explicitly today -- no delta.

But for a lot of people this is going to sound like, "Google catches Bing cheating". And for a lot of people this is going to sound like, "Google complains about competitor Bing".

Given where Bing mindshare and marketshare is today versus its search qualty, I think this isn't a horrible place to be. Esepcially if it gets people to say, "Let me try a query on Google and Bing and see who is copying?" or to simply see what the hoopla is about.

And Google made a mistake when they worked with Danny in getting this story out too. It should have been "Microsoft copies", not "Bing copies".

Re: Microsoft: 'We do not copy Google's results'

#53

Post by earl » Tue, Feb 01, 2011, 8:56 PM UTC

Creating a bullshit opt-out -- that they know damn well virtually no one will ever read -- and then having IE send apparently the entirety of a user's browse behavior to MS is sketchy as all hell. One more reason never to use an MS product.

Re: Microsoft: 'We do not copy Google's results'

#54

Post by Devilboy » Tue, Feb 01, 2011, 9:04 PM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #28

piotrSikora wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, they could just observe what user clicks after search (on any search engine, including Bing) and use it as a signal. If that is indeed the case, then they are not copying results from Google, they are just tracking users' choices to improve position of interesting results on Bing. Personally, I don't see anything wrong about that. Keep in mind that in Google's experiment, they always clicked on the first res…

> Personally, I don't see anything wrong about that. I, however, would call it spyware.

Yea sure but even the Google toolbar reports user behavior if you let it.

Re: Microsoft: 'We do not copy Google's results'

#55

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Feb 01, 2011, 9:13 PM UTC

kenjackson wrote: post #33

pg wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because if Bing has to rely on Google Search's solutions to problems it should itself be able to solve, that implies it's inferior technology.

"rely"? It's using customer behavior as a signal. Someone typing into a search box and clicking a link is a pretty good signal, regardless of where the search happens. This only implies inferior technology if this is the only signal you have in determining relevance, but clearly they have tons of them. The fact that they're trying to capture the totality of the user experience is a very good thing (again with opt-in)…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft: 'We do not copy Google's results'

#56

Post by ac2u » Tue, Feb 01, 2011, 9:20 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #23

kenjackson wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would potential employees take this negatively? This is exactly the type of thing I'd love to work on. Give me opt-in to your web browsing characteristics, and let me optimize your searches. Opt-in is the key. I'm certainly an odd one here, but I'm more inclined to use the Bing toolbar due to this, although the perf cost is still too high to use any toolbar, IMO. What would be nice is if the browsers had an open…

Because if Bing has to rely on Google Search's solutions to problems it should itself be able to solve, that implies it's inferior technology.

They don't. They rely on tracking data on performing any search and the resulting click which occurs. Just because Google happens to be the middleman in some of these metrics, doesn't mean there should be a massive leap of logic to the statement: "Bing has to rely on Google Search's solutions".

Re: Microsoft: 'We do not copy Google's results'

#57

Post by joelhaus » Tue, Feb 01, 2011, 9:20 PM UTC

kenjackson wrote: post #33

pg wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because if Bing has to rely on Google Search's solutions to problems it should itself be able to solve, that implies it's inferior technology.

"rely"? It's using customer behavior as a signal. Someone typing into a search box and clicking a link is a pretty good signal, regardless of where the search happens. This only implies inferior technology if this is the only signal you have in determining relevance, but clearly they have tons of them. The fact that they're trying to capture the totality of the user experience is a very good thing (again with opt-in)…

Exposing this practice has also introduced another potential problem for Bing. Gaming of their search results.

I would expect to see spammers sending many thousands/millions of clicks on specific Google search results through Bing's Toolbar for long-tail queries.

Re: Microsoft: 'We do not copy Google's results'

#58

Post by jerf » Tue, Feb 01, 2011, 9:27 PM UTC

kenjackson wrote: post #52

rfugger wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it was clever, until Google caught them at it and started using it to undercut their "mindshare".

I put even money that this helps their mindshare. For people that use Google/Bing explicitly today -- no delta. But for a lot of people this is going to sound like, "Google catches Bing cheating". And for a lot of people this is going to sound like, "Google complains about competitor Bing". Given where Bing mindshare and marketshare is today versus its search qualty, I think this isn't a horrible place to be. Esepcia…

'"Google complains about competitor Bing"'

"Bing is too weak to stand on its own and it knows it, so it cheats."

I do not think the court of public opinion is going to let go of the word "cheating" so rapidly. It's a toxic word, and whether or not you think it's true it's supported well enough that it won't matter.

Re: Microsoft: 'We do not copy Google's results'

#59

Post by mc32 » Tue, Feb 01, 2011, 9:28 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #23

kenjackson wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would potential employees take this negatively? This is exactly the type of thing I'd love to work on. Give me opt-in to your web browsing characteristics, and let me optimize your searches. Opt-in is the key. I'm certainly an odd one here, but I'm more inclined to use the Bing toolbar due to this, although the perf cost is still too high to use any toolbar, IMO. What would be nice is if the browsers had an open…

Because if Bing has to rely on Google Search's solutions to problems it should itself be able to solve, that implies it's inferior technology.

It's not really relying on Google's search solutions at all. It's relying on users' search behavior. It's coincidental that they (users) use Google and that they happen to always click on the bogus result --when no other data are available.

Their method, when no data is available for a search term, is to sometimes (7 out of 100?) rely on human ranked results (in this case gamed by Google) via user behavior gathered with their toolbar.

It'd be interesting to find out if Bing was only using behavioral results of Google users or they recorded behavior by users of all search engines. Unfortunately, Google don't seem to have conducted an A/B test to find out, so it ended up with confirmation bias.

Re: Microsoft: 'We do not copy Google's results'

#60

Post by hristov » Tue, Feb 01, 2011, 9:37 PM UTC

This is a sloppy article. If you are going to quote a Microsoft blog post in part, do link to it. Does anyone have a link to the blog post in question from Harry Shum, Bing Corporate Vice President. The quote sounds pretty evasive but I would like to see the whole thing before I judge.

EDIT: I found the post:

http://www.bing.com/community/site_blogs/b/search/archive/20...

Reading the whole thing it seems like he pretty much admitted copying Google's search results through users of the Google toolbar. He calls it "collective intelligence."