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Matt Cutt's thoughts on Google Bing Debate

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Re: Matt Cutt's thoughts on Google Bing Debate

#81

Post by [deleted] »

jsnell wrote: post #51
kenjackson wrote: post #3

Let’s take that thought to its conclusion. If clicks on Google really account for only 1/1000th (or some other trivial fraction) of Microsoft’s relevancy, why not just stop using those clicks and reduce the negative coverage and perception of this? And if Microsoft is unwilling to stop incorporating Google’s clicks in Bing’s rankings, doesn’t that argue that Google’s clicks account for much more than 1/1000th of Bing…

Best for their customers in what time frame? They might get better results in the short term, but it's much less clear what the long term effects are. What if it slows down innovation in search quality and moves effort into marketing, shiny baubles? After all, why bother spending resources on researching, implementing and evaluating the algorithms when your competitors will within a couple of months gain the most of…

[deleted]

Re: Matt Cutt's thoughts on Google Bing Debate

#82

Post by boredguy8 »

webwright wrote: post #31

"Copying" was a pretty brutal word to use-- not surprising that it raised MSFT's hackles a bit. MS clearly uses toolbar users' clickstreams (on and off Google) to improve their own search efforts. Google created an artificial scenario where the ONLY input was Google search behavior and lo, the search results are exactly the same. Whether or not that steps over a line (I don't feel that it does), it's not "copying" in…

I don't understand how this isn't a settled issue. If clickstream data is 1 of 1000 signals, and you create clickstream data for a specialized query that will never trigger off another signal, then your created data will be reflected. That sounds exactly like what happened.

You'd have to make the argument that using this data is wrong, somehow. But to make that argument, you'd basically have to argue that users shouldn't be able to share their habits with whomever they want to. I doubt that argument can be made in a compelling way.

I'm surprised Google is pushing this further, and a little disappointed.

Re: Matt Cutt's thoughts on Google Bing Debate

#83

Post by tygorius »

coderdude wrote: post #60
angusgr wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The part that seems interesting to me is that Google scrapes other entities' data (Reader, News, Books, Scholar) in dozens of other ways, and that behaviour is generally regarded as totally justifiable.

Because Google has a symbiotic relationship with the entities whose data it's grabbing. It uses that data to drive traffic or attention to the originators and owners of that data. Everyone wants Google to use their data to drive them traffic and those who do not use robots.txt. Bing is being parasitic to Google in this situation by generating no value for them.

Bing is being parasitic to Google in this situation by generating no value for them.

Well, perhaps Microsoft thinks its business involves providing value to their customers rather than its competitors. What seems consistently missing from the Google PR campaign has been how Microsoft's behavior is a bad thing for the user.

Re: Matt Cutt's thoughts on Google Bing Debate

#84

Post by kenjackson »

haberman wrote: post #52
kenjackson wrote: post #3

Let’s take that thought to its conclusion. If clicks on Google really account for only 1/1000th (or some other trivial fraction) of Microsoft’s relevancy, why not just stop using those clicks and reduce the negative coverage and perception of this? And if Microsoft is unwilling to stop incorporating Google’s clicks in Bing’s rankings, doesn’t that argue that Google’s clicks account for much more than 1/1000th of Bing…

> My take on this is quite the opposite. If MS thinks they're doing nothing wrong, they shouldn't stop. They should do what is best for their customers. Does this mean anyone should feel free to ignore robots.txt if they think it will be better for their customers?

Web content layout and text owned by website. Opt out with robots.txt.

Clickstream owned by user. Opt out by turning off toolbar.

Both should be respected.

Re: Matt Cutt's thoughts on Google Bing Debate

#85

Post by coderdude »

tygorius wrote: post #83
coderdude wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Google has a symbiotic relationship with the entities whose data it's grabbing. It uses that data to drive traffic or attention to the originators and owners of that data. Everyone wants Google to use their data to drive them traffic and those who do not use robots.txt. Bing is being parasitic to Google in this situation by generating no value for them.

Bing is being parasitic to Google in this situation by generating no value for them. Well, perhaps Microsoft thinks its business involves providing value to their customers rather than its competitors. What seems consistently missing from the Google PR campaign has been how Microsoft's behavior is a bad thing for the user.

Google doesn't spend exorbitant amounts of money so that they can provide value to Bing's users. If Bing's users want value they can use Google instead.

Re: Matt Cutt's thoughts on Google Bing Debate

#86

Post by ddkrone »

boredguy8 wrote: post #82
webwright wrote: post #31

"Copying" was a pretty brutal word to use-- not surprising that it raised MSFT's hackles a bit. MS clearly uses toolbar users' clickstreams (on and off Google) to improve their own search efforts. Google created an artificial scenario where the ONLY input was Google search behavior and lo, the search results are exactly the same. Whether or not that steps over a line (I don't feel that it does), it's not "copying" in…

I don't understand how this isn't a settled issue. If clickstream data is 1 of 1000 signals, and you create clickstream data for a specialized query that will never trigger off another signal, then your created data will be reflected. That sounds exactly like what happened. You'd have to make the argument that using this data is wrong, somehow. But to make that argument, you'd basically have to argue that users shoul…

You should be able to share your results with whoever you want but that's not what happens. You share your data with just bing and google. You don't really own any of the data you are generating so saying you should be able to share it with whoever you want is saying hop before you've jumped.

Re: Matt Cutt's thoughts on Google Bing Debate

#87

Post by jdp23 »

moultano wrote: post #58
jdp23 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember back when people hand-crafted directories for the web. They'd put a lot of work into updating their directory and then in just a couple of days an automated spider would look at their site and a search engine would use their link structure to point everybody directly to the best pages without having to go through the directory. The search engine had no idea of what evidence the directory used. Was it fair?…

robots.txt

robots.txt is a good example of something that was introduced to make the new search engine technology more ethical but I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. If you're saying that we need a new robots.txt option saying "don't use clickstream data to help people find this page", I don't disagree; I'm not sure how many sites would take advantage of it though.

Re: Matt Cutt's thoughts on Google Bing Debate

#88

Post by tygorius »

magicalist wrote: post #38
davidu wrote: post #5

I think Matt lays out a strong argument for why they have made such a stink. And it sounds like a pretty compelling defense for their actions to go public. But... 1) I think they will regret it bigtime when all the attention they are causing makes the bored government officials poke their head in and realize that at a macro level, neither Bing nor Google does anything to protect user search privacy. 2) I think Google…

> 1) ...neither Bing nor Google does anything to protect user search privacy. do you mean external or internal privacy? in terms of leaking information, SSL for search is about as good as you're going to get for privacy...if it's the browser or an extension (toolbar) that's watching searches, there's nothing a web site can do. > 2) I think Google has more to lose by bringing this to light than they have to win. That…

I think google should have taken the humour route in the first place

Good point. I think the current PR campaign, and really that is what it seems like now, is counterproductive. It used to be the response to Bing was "What, is that like Microsoft Bob for search?" The longer this campaign goes on, the more it increases the user perception of Bing as a serious competitor. Even if true, that's not really a good message to be promoting, even unintentionally.

Re: Matt Cutt's thoughts on Google Bing Debate

#89

Post by c2 »

c2 wrote: post #59

Either bring a lawsuit, or be quiet. You aren't going to shame Microsoft into changing their current policy, and even if it does improve results by only 1/1000, as long as they are legally within their right to do it, why wouldn't they? It's laughable to think this "controversy" is putting a black eye on to Bing in any way shape or form, except among perhaps the most technical and anal retentive among the population.

I understand the down votes, my comment wasn't all that constructive. But seriously, the amount of attention paid to this issue from Google might be better spent making their own products better. At best this is an issue for lawyers. The low road Google is taking by making a big stink in the 'blogosphere' is asinine to me, but clearly many of you disagree by continually voting up these stories.

Re: Matt Cutt's thoughts on Google Bing Debate

#90

Post by lmkg »

moultano wrote: post #42
davidu wrote: post #5

I think Matt lays out a strong argument for why they have made such a stink. And it sounds like a pretty compelling defense for their actions to go public. But... 1) I think they will regret it bigtime when all the attention they are causing makes the bored government officials poke their head in and realize that at a macro level, neither Bing nor Google does anything to protect user search privacy. 2) I think Google…

> They should focus on trying to be innovative again, that was the Google I respected. I work in search quality at Google. I'm busting my ass every day working on fundamental reimaginings of how results get ranked. I'm going to keep doing that regardless of what bing does, because it makes the world a better place, and it's fun. But, suppose the stuff I'm working on works out, and tomorrow Google shows up with a whol…

You have a valid point that the click-through measures more of what Google puts out rather than what users find useful. But Bing has access not just to the click-through rate but also the rest of the clickstream. IF (and that's an all-caps if) the value of the click is weighted by engagement metrics on the resulting page, the association is more closely related to the value the user finds in the page rather than the results that Google returned. Would you have a problem with Bing doing that? As a user, and not a developer, I rather like it because it's a much more direct metric of whether a link is useful or not.
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