
Microsoft: 'We do not copy Google's results' - mjfern
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-we-do-not-copy-googles-results/8557
======
pg
The statements by the Microsoft people remind me of "I did not have sexual
relations with that woman."

They don't seem to realize that ordinary consumers don't care about this, and
that the people who do care (e.g. investors, potential employees) are smart
enough that these evasions just make the problem worse.

~~~
kenjackson
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 format of your browsing
history that you can send to providers of your choice...

~~~
pg
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.

~~~
kenjackson
"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). Search relevance hasn't progressed as
it should. But I think if they could use my web browsing habits it would
increase a fair bit.

And lastly, Bing and Google are near parity, but not identical. I don't think
anyone is under any allusions that neither engine could learn a thing or two
from the other.

It's not about inferior or not, but trying to get better.

~~~
joelhaus
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.

~~~
ars
You'd first have to get the result to come up as a result of your search.

(Although I suppose you could hack the toolbar and send the data manually.)

------
user24
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 'show' that Google
were 'copying' from webpages, or worse assumed that Google were manipulating
search results.

I think Harry was exactly correct to describe this as a new kind of click
fraud, and Google's handling of their discovery of it just amazes me.

~~~
shadowfox
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.

------
terryjsmith
Obviously this depends highly on your definition of "copy". They presumably do
not scrape Google's answers, but using user behavior patterns targeting search
sites (or tracking all user data but analyzing the search segment) and what
people clicked is just as bad.

~~~
gst
How do you know that they target search sites? This could also be a more
generic approach: If there's a link from page A to page B also return page B
if someone searches for page A's keywords and there are only few results.

~~~
jameskilton
Have you read the original claim? Google did a test with completely nonsense
words and 100% unrelated search results with those terms. The results showed
up on Bing. Whatever Bing is doing, it _is_ using Google's search data.

[http://searchengineland.com/google-bing-is-cheating-
copying-...](http://searchengineland.com/google-bing-is-cheating-copying-our-
search-results-62914)

~~~
gst
I didn't deny that they are using Google's data. But it could be possible that
they have some kind of generic approach not specifically targeting Google (or
even search engines).

~~~
piotrSikora
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
result, which is probably why their result was send to Microsoft and that the
experiment "succeeded".

~~~
rbanffy
> Personally, I don't see anything wrong about that.

I, however, would call it spyware.

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

~~~
rbanffy
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.

------
snorkel
"... we embrace and extend them."

------
tristanperry
"We do not copy Google's results."

Which does NOT answer the claims really. No one is saying they COPY them
verbatim. They're saying that they SOMETIMES 'look at' the Google results as a
ranking signal. And in SOME cases (it seems when it's a fairly obscure search
phrase), Bing displays the same result as Google does - as the sting operation
shown.

This naturally doesn't mean that Bing copy Google 100%, of course. But that's
not what today's news is about.

A very weak 'reply' from Microsoft which again seems to pretty much confirm
that they ARE 'looking at' certain Google results.

~~~
contextfree
It's getting blurbed as "Bing's results are a copy of Google's". The nuances
you detail are buried halfway through Danny Sullivan's article and are not
reflected in his takeaway in the conclusion.

~~~
rbanffy
> It's getting blurbed as "Bing's results are a copy of Google's"

Which is untrue. They are nowhere near as good.

------
hristov
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...](http://www.bing.com/community/site_blogs/b/search/archive/2011/02/01/thoughts-
on-search-
quality.aspx?form=MFEHPG&publ=TWITTER&crea=TEXT_MFEHPG_SM0201_bb0201_TW005_1x1)

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."

------
bhavin
I guess that's best possible defense for them at the moment.

"We do not copy Google's results (however, we do use them in 'creative'
ways!)"

~~~
gst
> "We do not copy Google's results (however, we do use them in 'creative'
> ways!)"

What's the difference to what Google does by e.g. using newspaper articles in
a "creative" way (by not only showing them in the search results, but by
combining them to a new type of newspaper at news.google.com)?

~~~
Joakal
Bing attempts to heavily monetise their ventures. So basically they're taking
away potential eyeballs. And Google did run into a similar issue with
news.google.com:
[http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gRqFRzuaE...](http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gRqFRzuaEPBCS1eMGcdnEj6Ny1ow)

------
projectileboy
I believe Ben Bradlee would call that a "non-denial denial".

------
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 :-)

------
giberson
Pragmatically, the following scenario underlines why this is practice is
overall bad for the consumer.

    
    
      Company A produces product 1.
      Company B produces product 2 inferior to product 1.
      Consumers use product 1.
      Company B enhances product 2 by actively engaging product 1.
      Some consumers use product 2.
      Company B product 2 rises in market share.
      More consumers user product 2.
      Company A drops product 1 due to lack of profits.
      Product 2 quality deteriorates due to absence of product 1.
      Consumers left with inferior product option.

------
earl
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.

------
jranck
This remains as relevant as ever...

"Bad artists copy. Good artists steal." -Picasso

------
natch
Microsoft: "Music you buy from us Plays For Sure.(TM)"

(the above is just my interpretation).

Is there a pattern here?

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

~~~
rbanffy
See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation>

~~~
shadowfox
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.

~~~
rbanffy
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.

------
yatsyk
MS caught on:

\- optimization for SunSpider [1]

\- now scrapping google SERP

Curious what is next? Linux code is in Win7?

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1913102>

