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Why is Google so hysterically hypocritical about Bing using its public data?

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Re: Why is Google so hysterically hypocritical about Bing using its public data?

#101

Post by Splines »

chawco wrote: post #67
greyman wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft do NOT steal Google's search results. They use clickstream data from Bing toolbar users to improve their search results. What happened is that Google engineers engineered a use case, in which signal from those clickstream appear like a stealing of search results. Or in other words, Microsoft uses Google users behaviour in their ranking algorithm. But that's not unethical, and Google is doing the same thing.

My issue with it is this: Had Google not created a better algorithm would those users be clicking on those links? If Google shut down today would Microsoft be able to associate those sites with the search terms? I should think the answer to the above is 'no' in both cases, which is why this is cheating. It's probably not illegal, but I find the practice to be unethical. Ask yourself this: If Google shut down today, w…

I don't think it's so clear. Is drafting unethical?

In any case, for all you know, if everyone started using the Bing Toolbar, it may provide better clickstream data, causing more relevant Bing results.

Re: Why is Google so hysterically hypocritical about Bing using its public data?

#102

Post by KirinDave »

haberman wrote: post #90
greyman wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft do NOT steal Google's search results. They use clickstream data from Bing toolbar users to improve their search results. What happened is that Google engineers engineered a use case, in which signal from those clickstream appear like a stealing of search results. Or in other words, Microsoft uses Google users behaviour in their ranking algorithm. But that's not unethical, and Google is doing the same thing.

> They use clickstream data from Bing toolbar users to improve their search results. If that leads to Bing absorbing Google's results, and eg. suggesting spelling corrections they would have never figured out except that Google thought of them first, then they are indeed stealing results, whether they meant to or not, and need to stop. George Harrison didn't mean to copy the song "He's So Fine" when he wrote his song…

> If that leads to Bing absorbing Google's results, and eg. suggesting spelling corrections they would have never figured out except that Google thought of them first, then they are indeed stealing results, whether they meant to or not, and need to stop.

Even if that's indirect information? For example, the Bing toolbar doesn't really say (in Gargamel's American voice for effect), "Nyhaahaha! I see these google search results! I will steal!" No, rather it says, "Ahh, after the result of a query to this site, we then leave the site to go to this page. If that query and this destination page appear in aggregate, Bing should take notice."

When I first learned how the Bing toolbar did this, I had two reactions: "Oh, that's clever. It's like engaging your users to help you be a directed crawler. It's 'querytext', which is not unlike google's innovation, 'linktext'." and then "But I would still never install the Bing toolbar. Man, that thing is a sad clown show." Honestly, it's one of Bing's smarter ideas.

There is only so far pure crawling and statistical analysis can go; there simply isn't enough data there and everyone knows how to use that data to great effect. Every search engine is incorporating new realtime communications and user behavior streams into their search results. Google certainly does this, albeit without a toolbar. Bing simply has the entire Microsoft software stack to lobby for help, so if someone opts into the Bing toolbar, they can opt into submitting additional information to improving the Bing index.

I'm not a big fan of MS or Bing, but in this they are only culpable for being clever. They are using querytext to improve relevance. I'm told you could make the same stunt work from a Wikipedia search box, leading to a wikipedia page.

Re: Why is Google so hysterically hypocritical about Bing using its public data?

#103

Post by cgoddard »

nlogn wrote: post #98
luigi wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the effect is the same as intentional scraping and outright stealing: search results that could have only come from Google are appearing as Bing results. Bing needs to blacklist Google from its clickstream. Simple.

I don't even think they should just blacklist Google. They should just respect robots.txt. edit: I should have clarified. I know that the Bing crawler likely respects robots.txt, but if they are using clickstream info to build their index, it seems right that they should respect robots.txt there as well, no?

You could strongly argue that collecting clickstream and other user browser session info via a toolbar is not a form of web robot (crawler, spider, etc.), and thus robots.txt does not apply.

Re: Why is Google so hysterically hypocritical about Bing using its public data?

#104

Post by stanleydrew »

nlogn wrote: post #98
luigi wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the effect is the same as intentional scraping and outright stealing: search results that could have only come from Google are appearing as Bing results. Bing needs to blacklist Google from its clickstream. Simple.

I don't even think they should just blacklist Google. They should just respect robots.txt. edit: I should have clarified. I know that the Bing crawler likely respects robots.txt, but if they are using clickstream info to build their index, it seems right that they should respect robots.txt there as well, no?

I'm pretty sure the Bing Crawler does respect robots.txt. The data Bing collected didn't come from spidering Google.

Re: Why is Google so hysterically hypocritical about Bing using its public data?

#105

Post by stanleydrew »

moultano wrote: post #95
dekz wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft uses behaviour I doubt they are only targeting Google. But I completely agree, the data is not being mined from Google, it's a relationship for search term a to page b created by the user, not stolen from Google.

Google is the one creating the association, not the user. The relationship between term a and page b was created by Google, and confirmed by a user. People don't click on search results that aren't there.

This is the most important comment I've read so far on this issue. What everything comes down to is whether user generated associations between searches and results via clicks are fair game as a signal.

As this comment points out, there is a decent argument that searchers on Google or other engines aren't the ones creating the associations, and therefore perhaps Bing has no right to use that data.

Re: Why is Google so hysterically hypocritical about Bing using its public data?

#106

Post by cpr »

recoiledsnake wrote: post #81
cpr wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2. & 3.) It's very, very late to come to these races with nothing truly compelling to show. I think they've already lost, but, nothing's sure...

Expect a big push for WP7 once it available on Verizon/Sprint. Microsoft in underdog mode is a very different and dangerous beast. See Windows,Xbox, Word, Excel, NT, Exchange, .NET, IE. The first few versions were laughed at and dismissed but later ones mostly blew away the competition(yes, IE was better than Netscape in the 4.0 and 5.0 days while Netscape took forever to release their 6.0). Apple likes to retreat in…

Good points. I don't think we can write them off yet.

But it's pretty clear they lack the leadership at this point to move quickly to remedy their shortcomings. That wasn't true at the come-from-behind points in the past (Gates was still around).

Re: Why is Google so hysterically hypocritical about Bing using its public data?

#107

Post by j79 »

andrenotgiant wrote: post #45
coffeemug wrote: post #35

Oh jeez, not again. This is the Microsoft we know and love to hate, less so now that it is falling apart and must be pitied as an underdog. Let's see: Market cap: Microsoft - 239.49B, Google - 195.50B. Revenue: Microsoft - 66.69B, Google - 29.32B. Profit margin: Microsoft - 30.84%, Google - 29.01%. Falling apart. Right...

All it took to piece together the author's ignorance was the "Daniel Eran Dilger is the author of “Snow Leopard Server (Developer Reference),” quote down at the end. I'm sure his line of thought was: "All my friends at Starbucks have MacBook Pros, so Microsoft must be doing really badly." Probably the same reason half his argument seemed to involve Android jealousy...

Goodness, your comment seems to imply you have an issue with Apple products, their policies, and/or Steve Jobs. Yeah, the guy writes about OS X and Apple, but he's been a tech consultant for nearly two decades. He's worked with various technologies, from various companies. A quick Google search (heh) would have revealed this. Or, what? Did you believe he was some 20-something year old blogger regurgitating the same "FUD" you believe all Apple fanboys are spewing regarding their "Android jealousy"?

Re: Why is Google so hysterically hypocritical about Bing using its public data?

#108

Post by evgen »

moultano wrote: post #95
dekz wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft uses behaviour I doubt they are only targeting Google. But I completely agree, the data is not being mined from Google, it's a relationship for search term a to page b created by the user, not stolen from Google.

Google is the one creating the association, not the user. The relationship between term a and page b was created by Google, and confirmed by a user. People don't click on search results that aren't there.

Google is not creating the association. Users are creating the associations, Google is discovering them and presenting them back to other users, and subsequent users are confirming the associations. In this case Google engineers, masquerading as users, created associations, then Google presented those associations back to the user, and Bing noticed the association between the term and the page.

The relationship between a term and a page was not created by Google, it was created by users. Google just indexes everything and makes note of these associations, but its does not create the link in the first place.

Re: Why is Google so hysterically hypocritical about Bing using its public data?

#109

Post by ohashi »

newt wrote: post #92
luigi wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the effect is the same as intentional scraping and outright stealing: search results that could have only come from Google are appearing as Bing results. Bing needs to blacklist Google from its clickstream. Simple.

the effect is the same as intentional scraping and outright stealing The google engineers intentionally sent this click data to Bing, so is Bing really stealing? It's odd to act surprised when Bing uses the data that was intentionally sent to it. Bing could specifically ignore Google search results pages when it is tracking clicks, but is that legitimate? Google scrapes everything, why shouldn't Bing?

They were testing to see if it was true. Many users are doing it, bing is taking data for non-google engineers too.

Re: Why is Google so hysterically hypocritical about Bing using its public data?

#110

Post by gcb »

geuis wrote: post #3

I read half of this. Its late, and I don't have the time or energy to refute point by point every single wrong thing that is written in that half. Its easy to sum up. Yes, Google indexes hundreds of millions of sites. It does so in order for other people to be able to search and find those sites, which is important to their owners. Its a symbiotic relationship, not theft of intellectual property. Google has spent bil…

Wrong. Google uses the link-out of other sites to rank the linked site.

So if I have a site that review sites about x, google will use my links to rank the sites about x. It will benefit google, sites about x, advertisers for x, users searching for x. But NEVER me.

now, replace "me" for "google" and "google"for "bing". And you will see how you and google are being hypocrite

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