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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?

#51
post #47
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not understand this. * Are Microsoft saying end users are naturally clicking on nonsense phrases invented by Google? * If not, what are they saying?

The Google engineers who planted the phrases were running the Bing toolbar themselves. That part isn't in question.

So MS are saying Google themselves uploaded the data to MS by using Bing toolbar?

Does Google agree their engineers did this?

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

#52
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not understand this. * Are Microsoft saying end users are naturally clicking on nonsense phrases invented by Google? * If not, what are they saying?

What's not to understand? Microsoft is colecting search phrases from searches people make though the IE search box. Then they are tying that data to the next page people click to after the search. Google intentionally polluted their data using odd phrases and asked users to click on their bogus results. Given that the only data bing would have for those strange phrases is polluted crap from Googlers it's not surprisi…

> Google asked users to click on their bogus results.

Got a citation for that?

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

#53
Not really. If Google wants to publicly shame Microsoft it can and is. They're basically saying that Bing is the new "Let me Google that for you". Since they're not currently proceeding with legal motions it's basically just a smear campaign to make people think twice about Bing.

And there's truth to it.

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

#54
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not understand this. * Are Microsoft saying end users are naturally clicking on nonsense phrases invented by Google? * If not, what are they saying?

What's not to understand? Microsoft is colecting search phrases from searches people make though the IE search box. Then they are tying that data to the next page people click to after the search. Google intentionally polluted their data using odd phrases and asked users to click on their bogus results. Given that the only data bing would have for those strange phrases is polluted crap from Googlers it's not surprisi…

Since nailer's comment on my other post can't be directly replied to.

From googles mouth

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/microsofts-bing-uses-...

"We gave 20 of our engineers laptops with a fresh install of Microsoft Windows running Internet Explorer 8 with Bing Toolbar installed. As part of the install process, we opted in to the “Suggested Sites” feature of IE8, and we accepted the default options for the Bing Toolbar.

We asked these engineers to enter the synthetic queries into the search box on the Google home page, and click on the results"

In all honesty I'm a bit wrong as they did say they used the google box on the page.

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

#55
post #24
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…

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.

Actually, Google denies that they do the same thing pretty emphatically. Basically, they claim that the same test in reverse would not work, because the data stream from their toolbar in a reversed test would not affect their algorithms in this manner.

But agreed that it seems like a very small nit to be magnified the way it has. Indeed, why they don't do this, and why we should care that Bing does, doesn't seem to be directly addressed other than by hand-wavery and PR speak about the research they've put into their algorithms and such.

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

#56
post #40
post #14

http://www.google.com/robots.txt First two lines: User-agent: * Disallow: /search

There is no robot involved. An actual human instructs their user agent to retrieve a document on Google. A piece of code, running in that user agent, does something. If anyone has a complaint here, it is the user, not Google. (Google really really doesn't want to spin this as "MS is spying on our users" because as soon as they say that some person is going to point out "Google is spying on the entire world" and that…

Thank you - I've been looking for the metaphor to express my impression of this whole matter, and you've given it to me.

It's Spy vs Spy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spy_vs._Spy

...a pitched battle between the opposite-but-indistinguishable agents of two superpowers, on a plane so far removed from the realm of actual people and their concerns that the customers don't even appear in the frame.

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

#57

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...

Microsoft is still a behemoth, with its fingers in a lot of pies, but unlike Apple and Google, it has not manage to grab onto the future, yet. The future if going mobile, and services. Microsoft has so far lost the mobile race, and the big services do not use MS servers. They are looking in the worst shape to face the future than they have ever, in the last 20 years.

I partially agree, but with some caveats:

1. Future is also in the games, and here Microsoft has a very competitive product (xbox/kinect)

2. mobile race is not over yet, and WP7 is conceptually a good product, combining polished UI (aka iOS) with at least some hardware variety (aka Android). It just came late to the game, but it is not yet clear if too late. I personally think they can catch up with throwing enough money into it.

3. We will see when they release OS for tablets. They are late here as well, but similar to point 2), maybe not too late.

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

#58
post #41
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.

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.

Would Bing then get called out by Google for the inevitable 'anticompetitive' lowering of Google's Bing search rankings?

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

#59

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...

Are you kidding yourself consciously or just 8 years behind the news? @_@

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=goog%20msft

Note how MSFT is swinging around 0% growth, while GOOG is steadily between +20% and +60% growth, in regard to share prices.

The market has spoken some time ago, and the trend doesn't look like changing anytime near soon.

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

#60
post #51
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Google engineers who planted the phrases were running the Bing toolbar themselves. That part isn't in question.

So MS are saying Google themselves uploaded the data to MS by using Bing toolbar? Does Google agree their engineers did this?

Yes. From the original article yesterday:

This all happened in December. When the experiment was ready, about 20 Google engineers were told to run the test queries from laptops at home, using Internet Explorer, with Suggested Sites and the Bing Toolbar both enabled. They were also told to click on the top results. They started on December 17. By December 31, some of the results started appearing on Bing.

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