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

zdnet.com

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

#71

Post by shadowfox »

user24 wrote: post #30

I'm quite stunned that Google allowed this story to break. It's such a bold claim, and with such an obvious explanation - Bing use all kinds of click data, whether from Google or not. Did they really not realise that was what was happening, or did they think "this is a certain PR win". Or do they just not have control of what their people say in public? It's like if MS had discovered googlebombing and used it to 'sho…

It does look like Google thinks this is a PR win. With their comments in the search engine forum and Matt Cuttis' comments in the original HN thread, it is hard believe that this is a "rogue" faction of some sort.

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

#72

Post by shadowfox »

rbanffy wrote: post #31
NonMint wrote: post #14

As always, buried under the platform hate and apologists from both sides, the answer probably lies somewhere in the middle.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation

I know it is fun to categorically dismiss posts with a wikipedia link to some arbitrary fallacy. (Hey. I can do it myself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy)

But he does have a fraction of a point.

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

#73

Post by ot »

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.

> that implies it's inferior technology.

Search engines learn a lot from their users. Think of spelling corrections, part of them are learned from users that typed both the mispelled and correct query in the same session.

Like in this case, many times better results don't come from better technology, but from a bigger userbase that gives more data to learn from.

Google has almost an order of magnitude more users than Bing, hence an enormous amount of data to learn from.

IMHO what Bing is doing is a way to tap a (biased, incomplete) part of that data (that also Google has, in their clicklogs) to use it as a signal for crawling and ranking.

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

#74

Post by cma »

brudgers wrote: post #65
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.

What I see is that Bing filtered out 93/100 of the deliberately planted seeds, and what I don't see is how many times Google sent each seed packet to Microsoft. If Google sent each packet through the Bing tool bar once, it is different than if they sent each one through 1000 times. [edit] In that case what Google did was exploit a feature of Bing toolbar in a manner somewhat akin to an injection attack. It is also no…

"broke what they claim to be their prime directive - not hard coding search rankings"

If you consider setting up a honeypot on a term with no hits to really be going against the "not hard coding search rankings" in any meaningful way, you are most likely some sort of obscure Bing ultra-partisan.

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

#75

Post by btig »

"It’s a point of pride to Google that it believes it has the best spelling correction system of any search engine"

Indeed, my 11 year old sister loves typing in silly search terms such as "stroobaray pai" and laughing about the fact that Google actually figured out what she meant :-)

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

#76

Post by rbanffy »

shadowfox wrote: post #72
rbanffy wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation

I know it is fun to categorically dismiss posts with a wikipedia link to some arbitrary fallacy. (Hey. I can do it myself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy ) But he does have a fraction of a point.

I agree I should have written something to go along with the link in the lines of "careful with your conclusions" to make my intention clear.

It is possible, however, to arrive at a right conclusion through incorrect reasoning.

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

#77

Post by rbanffy »

Devilboy wrote: post #54
rbanffy wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

How long would it take for Microsoft do stage a similar trap for already installed Google toolbars? The fact it hasn't been done is a good indicator they couldn't.

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

#78

Post by brudgers »

cma wrote: post #74
brudgers wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I see is that Bing filtered out 93/100 of the deliberately planted seeds, and what I don't see is how many times Google sent each seed packet to Microsoft. If Google sent each packet through the Bing tool bar once, it is different than if they sent each one through 1000 times. [edit] In that case what Google did was exploit a feature of Bing toolbar in a manner somewhat akin to an injection attack. It is also no…

"broke what they claim to be their prime directive - not hard coding search rankings" If you consider setting up a honeypot on a term with no hits to really be going against the "not hard coding search rankings" in any meaningful way, you are most likely some sort of obscure Bing ultra-partisan.

Let's be clear, Google hard coded search results for PR purposes and generated the PR with a 20 engineer black hat operation specifically intended to inject the honeypots into Bing's results. It was not a clever little hack. It was a multi-man year industrial espionage operation utilizing some of the best talent in the industry for the sake of a PR win.

The fact that Google's operation only succeeded with 7 out of 100 honeypots is telling evidence that Microsoft is explicitly trying not to do what Google is accusing it of doing given the scale of Google's operation.

This has nothing to do with Bing. Google's Prime Directive is their promise and no one else's. The fundamental nature of a promise is that it breaking it is not excused by "the ends justify the means."

However, some people may consider a promise to be breakable under extraordinary circumstances. I won't disagree that such a belief can be considered reasonable. But the circumstances under which Google violated their Prime Directive are hardly extraordinary - dragging Microsoft through the mud at a search conference

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

#79

Post by cma »

brudgers wrote: post #78
cma wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"broke what they claim to be their prime directive - not hard coding search rankings" If you consider setting up a honeypot on a term with no hits to really be going against the "not hard coding search rankings" in any meaningful way, you are most likely some sort of obscure Bing ultra-partisan.

Let's be clear, Google hard coded search results for PR purposes and generated the PR with a 20 engineer black hat operation specifically intended to inject the honeypots into Bing's results. It was not a clever little hack. It was a multi-man year industrial espionage operation utilizing some of the best talent in the industry for the sake of a PR win. The fact that Google's operation only succeeded with 7 out of 10…

This is laughable. They chose keywords no one would ever see as part of a real search. They are literally nonsensical strings of random letters.
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