Microsoft Vehemently Denies Google's "Bing Sting"

eldavojohn writes "In a blog post titled 'Setting the Record Straight,' Microsoft's senior vice president of online services, Yusuf Mehdi, addressed Google's 'Bing Sting' operation saying, 'We do not copy results from any of our competitors. Period. Full stop. We have some of the best minds in the world at work on search quality and relevance, and for a competitor to accuse any one of these people of such activity is just insulting.' Mehdi went on to claim that Google engaged in 'click fraud' in order to rig up their alleged 'experiment.' Mehdi added, 'That's right, the same type of attack employed by spammers on the web to trick consumers and produce bogus search results. What does all this cloak and dagger click fraud prove? Nothing anyone in the industry doesn't already know.' The struggle for Bing to usurp Google as number one in search continues."

Comments

Response from Another VP

[eldavojohn]

When I submitted the story, I had not noticed an additional response from Harry Shum, VP of Bing, who said:

To be clear, we learn from all of our customers. What we saw in today’s story was a spy-novelesque stunt to generate extreme outliers in tail query ranking. It was a creative tactic by a competitor, and we’ll take it as a back-handed compliment. But it doesn’t accurately portray how we use opt-in customer data as one of many inputs to help improve our user experience.

Apparently Google's accusations are viewed by some as a backhanded compliment.

Re:Response from Another VP

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently Google's accusations are viewed by some as a backhanded compliment.

I don't thing they're wrong. I remember years and years ago how excited the Slashdot crowd got when Microsoft started directly addressing their superiority over Linux in their marketing propaganda. It meant Linux was enough of a threat that Microsoft was taking it seriously.

When was the last time you heard Google talk about other search engines? When it comes to searching, Google's been the undisputed market leader for a long time. For them to seriously acknowledge Bing, even if it's solely in the form of criticism, is still a big step.

Re:Response from Another VP

[1s44c]

Apparently Google's accusations are viewed by some as a backhanded compliment.

It is a complement in a way. If you accuse someone of cheating you are also admiting that you noticed them, they are relevant, and they are annoying you.

Sadly the core of the story that bing is using dodgy tactics to catch up with technically better competition is just business as usual.

Re:Response from Another VP

[Missing.Matter]

I still don't understand how this is in any way dodgey or underhanded.

1. Step 1: User opts in to report anonymous clickthrough data to Bing
2. Step 2: User searches for a term, chooses a search result
3. Step 3: Microsoft gets the data and compares it against relevent information for that search term.

Since google chose a random, unique for their search term, there is nothing to compare the user behavior with so it receives a disproportionately high amount of weight. With actual search terms, what a user searches for on google will have significantly less weight in the rankings, and depending on their algorithm could be next to inconsequential.

But the fact remains that looking at how customers use the competition (especially the frontrunner) is prevalent in all industries, and is a really smart idea from a business standpoint, and only serves to benefit your customers. By the looks of Google's optional photo homepage, they are guilty of it too (and if they weren't doing more I would be shocked). It seems the only people who are upset about this are Google, and people loyal to Google (most /. users).

Re:Response from Another VP

[poetmatt]

It's much more simple than that. They are calling copying "improving user experience".

It basically shows that bing can't do well enough on their own, and can only compete by mirroring google. I dont' get why they don't just mirror google's results and add a bing stamp to it.

anything wrong with that? Absolutely not. You don't hear anything about google suing for this, and there have been discussions on whether they would have standing on this (possible - grey area). Was google right to poke fun at bing? Absolutely.

Re:Response from Another VP

[sjames]

User with Bing spyware bar searches google. Bing gets record of term searched on and the results of that search. Bing adds to database.

Re:Response from Another VP

[LordLimecat]

Step 3: Microsoft gets the data and compares it against relevent information for that search term.

So what youre saying is, they ARE copying google, just with the user's opt-in consent? Ah, thats different then.

Re:Response from Another VP

[GooberToo]

That's one way of viewing it, and obviously the way MS is spinning it. On the other hand, once you look deeper, MS' account actually validates Google's account and makes Bing look like a total piece of crap. Furthermore, once you actually critically review what Microsoft is say, they are in fact confirm Bing is a total piece of shit without farming Google.

Google notices Bing providing Google's results. Google investigates and sets up a sting. Google validates Bing is stealing Google's results, including rank significance. Microsoft fires back with details which attempt to ignore the fact that are taking Google's results as their own; including rank significance which is the most significant element of a modern search engine. Ultimately, it doesn't matter how MS got the data, its the fact that they are reproducing Google's results by using Google's results. No matter how you slice it, that's cheating. Period. Which basically confirms - Bing is absolute shit and is only better than shit when they are farming other search engines. Which, if you think about it, Microsoft is absolutely confirming all other search engines are better than Bing - otherwise they'd never have a need to farm everyone else.

Basically, you have two choices, you can turn your brain off and accept Microsoft's account, or you can dig a little deeper and see that Google is NOT annoyed by Bing, rather they are annoyed by Bing stealing and reproducing Google's hard work and claiming its Bing's own. Basically, Microsoft is actually confirming Bing is a piece of shit and that they only way they can produce good results is to farm their competition. Which in turn means, your conclusion is 180-degrees wrong. Basically, Google and Microsoft are concurrently confirming how good Google is and confirming how bad Bing works without farming their competitors. Again, no matter how you slice it, Microsoft confirm Bing is a piece of shit and that they farm their competitors results and claim them as their own.

Google has every right to be annoyed, but its impossible to presume their annoyance is validation so long as you apply any brain power to your analysis. When in fact, its Microsoft who is absolutely affirming Google's superiority to that of Bing.

Re:Response from Another VP

[clampolo]

I have been using ixquick. I like that it doesn't keep any data on you. You can even set it to use https so that noone else is snooping on your searches.

Re:Response from Another VP

[HermMunster]

I think most people choosing to opt-in are doing so because they feel that their "bing" searches would be relevant to Microsoft in improving their "bing" search system. I don't think any understood that Microsoft was going to be watching everything they do and every site they searched, including their competitor's.

Reading the Bing opt-in option I would never have concluded that Microsoft would have been using the Bing toolbar to collect search information from Google. I would have concluded that they were going to follow the process happening at their site in order to fine tune their site.

What Microsoft is doing is being a parasite. And it shows that they can't work out their own system. It tells me that they are failures and are willing to do anything to create a competent product (something they can't do on their own apparently).

Re:Response from Another VP

[SadButTrue]

I think they may very well have gotten all libertarian if google had tried, or indeed still does try, to involve the court system.

I think the way most of us, and at the very least I, view this as a simple case of dirty pool (think that may have been in one of the google posts) .

I think what is mostly being missed in all of the talk about this is the fact that if we take Microsoft assertion, that what google did was click fraud, at face value then we are left with the fact that one person manually clicking on a random string can push RIM's home page to the top slot in Bing's results for that string. Google went out of their way to say that they never use user clicks for ranking. I suspect this is because of how absurdly easy such a system is to game.

Re:Response from Another VP

[HermMunster]

Their opt-in terms are vague. To me it read as if they were implying that the information collected would be from their service so they can fine tune it. I would never have concluded that they were going to be stealing Google's search.

The way that Google has become so popular is that their search engine is used so much that the good stuff works to the top. Microsoft is trying to accomplish this without putting in the hard work up front.

I've said over and over that those toolbars are there for no other purpose other than tracking. Do you guys really think that those pretty buttons are all that useful? Did you guys not know that there's a drop down so you can switch search engines on the fly? Did you not know you can add additional search engines?

How many of you have gone to the gas station only to have someone come up to you with a gasoline can asking for some gas? It's annoying, they make it out like they are just trying to get from place to place. Then you see them later doing the same thing with someone else. At first you felt charitable and then you realized they are just a con and they are stealing from you.

The way that sting went down shows unequivocally that Microsoft is copying Google's search using the Bing toolbar.

So many act as if Microsoft is this weak up and comer and this is what the competition must do, when in reality Microsoft is a massive behemoth that makes billions of dollars every quarter in profit. And how many other companies have they stolen from using similar tactics? Over the past couple of decades it would be impossible to count--there are so many.

The "bot-net" analogy seems apt. The fact that they are doing this seems as if it is plausible to list the Bing toolbar as a spyware tool. And, if I recall in the past Microsoft had stake in another toolbar that was determined to be spyware/adware. Hotbar I believe it was called. Didn't it also do something similar? Hasn't Microsoft been shown to use other companies as proxies to do their dirty work?

Re:Response from Another VP

[makomk]

They aren't copying Google's results. They are recording which particular, individual result, of possibly thousands returned, the user actually found relevant. And, from what I understand, it's not specific to Google.

No, they're copying Google's results, they're just doing it selectively. That's what Google's experiment demonstrated. They're taking results that would Bing would never return at all for a particular search query - because it's not smart enough to figure out they're in any way related to the query - but that Google does find, and adding them to Bing's results for that specific query.

Re:Response from Another VP

[RobNich]

While Google search results look like links directly to their targets (because they are, right up until they are clicked), Google uses javascript to dynamically rewrite the link target to google URL which includes the target page URL and search terms, which is how Google tracks the click throughs (this Google page then redirects to the real target with a 302 response.)

Interesting theory, but demonstrably untrue. Install Live HTTP Headers and do a Google search, then click a result. There's no such redirect.

They track clicks of search results using Javascript, using the mousedown event on each search result link. There doesn't seem to be a server-side call, so they're probably setting a cookie with the click information and then reading the cookie later, when you return to Google.

I agree

[Haedrian]

The fact that microsoft technology has advanced to the point of linking

"delhipublicschool40 chdjob"
to a Credit Union website

is simply showing how well they understand their potential customers, and has nothing to do with the fact that Google set them up at all.

Re:I agree

[Xest]

I have to say that response made me chuckle

Feigned insult followed by a sleight of hand in trying to associate Google's research with spammers, fraudsters, and criminals.

What a terrible attempt at denial, it's not like they actually gave any evidence in their defence. They just pretended to be offended, and then tried to change the subject.

I'm usually quite supportive of Microsoft because I honestly believe some of their products (e.g. Visual Studio) are best of breed, but this is just a joke. They seem to have been caught red handed and have no idea how to deal with it, they'd have been better off just staying quiet and letting the story fade into obscurity than crying out like this without being able to offer the slightest bit of real actual defence such as an explanation of why they ended up with an obscure search term in their search results that Google had manufactured on their search engine.

Re:I agree

[mdm-adph]

Their technology is so advanced, how to we know they weren't linking "delhipublicschool40 chdjob" to Credit Union websites _before_ Google was? Maybe the Goog stole it from _them_.

Re:I agree

[aug24]

Next thing to do is for someone, maybe someone 'anonymous' to use the same trick to spam the rankings. Simply set up a proxy so that when you hit google for xxx, it returns a page containing yyy then click on it. Automate. Repeat.

Challenge: get Goatse on the first page for George W or T Blair, perhaps, or at least the dictionary page for 'idiot'.

Justin.

Re:I agree

[KarmaMB84]

They did offer a defense: it's the customer data. What happens is even if that customer data is only weighted as 0.001% as important as their other metrics, if that customer data is the ONLY data they have for these bogus search terms, this would happen. Google used obviously bogus search terms which have exaggerated the weighting of that data. In reality, that data might only move a page up or down a ranking on page 10 of a real search on Bing for all we know.

Unless they come up with some actual evidence of real copying, this is a non-story. The #1 complaint around here all the time seems to be that Bing ISN'T giving the same results as Google so obviously that customer data isn't be weighted as important enough!

Re:I agree

[Haedrian]

Here's the thing.

Search engines work like this

Query ---> [S.E.] --> Results

A clever search engine (one with high precision and recall) will give you the results you want. If you click on a result, you are assumed to have found that link useful. Google does that on its own search engine - and that's fair enough.

Now if I capture "Query" and "Correct Result", I am basically using the other search engine's technology (which is used to supply that good result) and the result of all the data collection, research and whatever - in order to improve my search results. That's not a very fair game. If my search results heavily depend on Google's search results - I am piggybacking off them.

I've nothing wrong with Google or Bing reading my searches I input into them and improving their product that way - I don't think its fair if the other company steals this data off other search engines.

Re:I agree

[Anonymous Coward]

a weighted theft is no less theft than actual theft. that is not 'customer data' they're collecting.

they're purposefully collecting and parsing search result generated from customer data by google.
it's as bad as a google or wikipedia iframe but more subtle. they are after all collecting advertisement money. ok, it's not as bad as murder or actual theft, still...

quite a difference there.

Re:I agree

[Missing.Matter]

IE didn't spy on them, the user (a google engineer in this case) opted in to send clickstream data to Bing.

Yes, in this case someone (again the google engineer) actually searched for and clicked on those obscure terms with the intent of sending the bogus data to Bing (which he had previously opted to do).

Since the data was so obscure and unique, the single data point from the google engineer received a disproportionately high weight in the search results.

Re:I agree

[suomynonAyletamitlU]

Well, you'll have to make a distinction for me.

What Microsoft is tantamount to admitting is that "customer data" includes searches on a rival engine, and the relevant results. In other words, "When our competitor successfully finds a result for you, we want to know what it is." Clearly, Microsoft never asked Google if this was okay, or there would be no shock and no argument. Instead, they're using users of their opt-in program (henceforth known as mules) in a distributed effort to get a mapping of search queries to useful results. However, those useful results were generated thanks to Google's long-standing competence in the field, and not by ANY process Bing has a hand in. Therefore it is still to be argued that Bing is appropriating, without due request or apology, a mapping of google's results weighted by the relevance to users of google's site. So tell me--how is that not copying results?

Further, the mules in this attack are legitimate Google users who are acting on good faith. And indeed, perhaps the weighting on the algorithm is such that until or unless the weighting changes, this mapping does so little to Bing's results as to be utterly innocent. However, if Bing gained dominance (at the expense of Google) because of this mapping, or if for any other reason this caused Google's service to falter or become unprofitable, those users of Google's service will have unwittingly caused its downfall, and they caused that downfall by being satisfied with Google as a product.

I'm probably overstating it, but it still leaves a nasty taste in the mouth as far as I'm concerned. There's a difference in Bing's policy versus whether or not they're successful at it. If they consider it good policy to sit on the threshold of stealing someone else's results, but then simply not weighting those results highly enough to cause trouble, then I take issue with them. It remains their prerogative to explain themselves if they want to reverse that opinion.

Re: Microsoft Vehemently Denies...

[hcs_$reboot]

Microsoft says the truth: a search of "Microsoft copies Google" in both Bing and Google yields different results.

Re:Ouch

[bluefoxlucid]

Well Microsoft's response is sort of self-incriminating really. I mean the summary here basically paints their response as simple posturing and trying to get out of getting caught doing something they're not supposed to. "How dare you! We're better than them! We're smarter than they are! Those people are just trying to make us look bad! That's it, THEY'RE cheating! They're rigging tests and accusing us of things! They're trying to make US look bad because THEY know we're BETTER and it gets their pants all in a knot! Why would WE ever do something like that?!"

We have some of the best minds in the world... after Google, who invented some truly creative and innovative search methods, and then patented them. We have to find a completely different direction that works the same way, kind of, then improve on it.

So the answer is yes

[Trelane]

They do spy on (sorry, gather 'click stream' data from) IE users (through IE itself, or one of its add-ons). Read those EULAs veeery carefully, folks!

Somehow this extremely relevant part of the story keeps getting skipped over whenever it's being told.

The 'click fraud' accusation is hilarious and quite arguably libelous as fraud (and click fraud) is a real criminal act.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_fraud
"Click fraud is a type of Internet crime that occurs in pay per click online advertising when a person, automated script or computer program imitates a legitimate user of a web browser clicking on an ad, for the purpose of generating a charge per click without having actual interest in the target of the ad's link. Click fraud is the subject of some controversy and increasing litigation due to the advertising networks being a key beneficiary of the fraud.

Use of a computer to commit this type of Internet fraud is a felony in many jurisdictions, for example, as covered by Penal code 502 in California, USA."
(also claimed to be a felony at http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/click-fraud.html with claims of arrests.)

"Period. Full stop". stop. over. out.

[unity100]

If, he hasnt used 'period' and 'full stop' and created enough dramatic pause, i wouldnt have believed him.

but now, i believe him, despite bing has been caught red handed, denied it without showing ANY proof, and then went on to accuse google of something totally irrelevant.

Re:"Period. Full stop". stop. over. out.

[Wolvenhaven]

"We do not copy results from any of our competitors. Period. Full stop."

The original draft
"We do not copy results from any of our competitors..."

MS-BS as usual

[oGMo]

This response is the usual BS handwaving from MS. There's a single paragraph which says essentially "er... they do click fraud!" without any real technical details or explanation. This is quite different from Google's posts, which are all very detailed about what they're doing and the results they're seeing. The rest of MS's article is marketing history ... not once is there real explanation of how they happen to have extremely obscure words pulling results for exactly what Google does. Just spin.

Thanks for trying, MS. You can't even come up with a technical response, and you want us to believe you can come up with a search engine?

Evidence and Explanation

[tzhuge]

Ok, I'm quite irked by this story, and I got modded troll a bunch of times by trying to point out that Google's experiment doesn't really support their accusation. I know some people will immediately label me a shill or apologist just for having a different opinion. What's stupid is I use Google search, and never Bing.

Anyways, the following is my understanding and some opinion. The secret knowledge of the search engine is the association of a search term and a result (usually a url). So to say that Bing is copying (I think 'cheating' might have the what was used, but copying is a lot of people's interpretation), implies they are acquiring Google's association data; conversely if the Bing search comes to the same result coincidentally, then they can't be 'cheating'. It wouldn't be that surprising if two search engines return same results for certain words. However, Google did their sting with fake terms... so obviously Bing is copying right?

So let's talk about their sting. They created (100?) honeypot search terms where a fake word would return a real link 'sss4yxyxy -> returns www.myresult.com'. Then they had 20 employees using IE and Bing toolbar w/ Google search and kept using these fake terms, then clicking the resulting link. Some time later, some of these fake terms return the same results on Bing.

A few things: Google employees opted into tracking w/ the Bing toolbar. (This is somewhat beside the point anyways, since Google isn't exactly in a position to point the finger about tracking.) Note that my understanding is that few of the (100?) honeypot terms actually worked on Bing.

The explanation from MS is that the Google employees gamed their user tracking mechanism to produce a result which makes it appear as if Bing is 'copying' Google. Basically they tracked the user search term, then the link they clicked through, and used this as part of the data for Bing. Google successfully gamed this because those terms are fake, and therefore the only data about them came from the sting.

So my opinion is that this isn't copying. If 100 of 100 honeypots showed up on Bing then that would support their accusation better. If their 20 employees only used Google normally from IE, without going through the toolbar, then that would strengthen the case. Without these, I have a hard time understanding how even the people at Google have rationalized their own accusation. Now maybe MS is lying and I'm a chump, but at least I'm taking the time to consider the evidence as presented.

Re:Evidence and Explanation

[tzhuge]

Sigh... they are acquiring association data from the tracked users. These fake users entered 'delhipublicschool40 chdjob' into the Bing search bar, then clicked on a link to 'a Credit Union website'. If they were copying directly from Google, then 100% of honeypot search terms should have worked...

It's not like that explanation even makes MS look good per se, but I'm almost guaranteed to get modded down again.

Re:Evidence and Explanation

[Blakey Rat]

Let me ask you this:

Let's say you visit a government information website, which has its own search engine completely disconnected with Google/Bing/Yahoo/etc. No data sharing at all, but the website is publicly available.

You put in a search term trying to find an application for a Foobar. (You search "foobar application", then click the resulting link "apply for a foobar".)

The Bing toolbar looks at the action you just took, and enters it into its database. When a certain number of people (say, 20, the number Google used) do the same search and click the same result, Bing thinks to itself, "well, this search and resulting link is pretty popular-- I should add that to my index."

Now in the future, the public can search the Foobar website to find the application directly from their browser's toolbar, instead of having to go to the Foobar website first. Bing's more useful to users, and Foobar's website is more useful to users.

Do you believe what Bing is doing in this scenario wrong?

MS is caught in a tangle of lies

[thsths]

"We do not copy results from any of our competitors. Period. Full stop."

That is funny, because you have just been *caught* copying results from your competitor. Period. Full stop. No chance this was a coincidence.

Now you seem to think because you copy it from Google result page in the users browser, and not from Google directly, you are not copying Google. But clearly you are. The user is "authorised" to use Google search results, after all that is the whole point of the search engine. You are not.

And I think this attitude is a shame, because some of the technologies from MS are actually pretty decent. Just search engine technology does not seem to be among those.

Re:Bing Quality (?!?)

[GameboyRMH]

Yeah I've used Bing a few times, it doesn't seem much better than the shitty old MSN search. And their marketing was the very worst I have ever seen for anything. You want me to switch from a search engine to a "decision engine?" You want to give me *less* information? FUCK NO, I'll decide for myself.

Pot calling kettle black

[bjourne]

Google has a long history of aggregating data it "borrowed" from other sources. First google news where they used slugs from newspapers to populate their pages. Then google books in which they made books available despite the publishers protests. Why someone shouldn't be allowed to use googles data, when they themselves have built their entire fortune on borrowing others data, is hypocrisy.

Re:SO WHAT

[GameboyRMH]

It's not copyright infringement, but it is (unrepentant) financially-motivated plagiarism, which is far worse in my book.

Also Microsoft basically performed a software-based MITM between users and Google - IIRC they notify users about this in one of their EULAs, but Google might want to ask their lawyers about that.

Diversion

[QuietLagoon]

We do not copy results from any of our competitors. Period. Full stop.

Parsing that carefully, that is not what Microsoft was accused of. So, in effect, Microsoft is saying that they did not do something that they were not accused of.

It's Microsoft's typical tactic, try to move the discussion over to a slightly different topic when Microsoft is caught with its hand in the cookie jar.

More disturbing for me during this whole mess is the fact that Microsoft is capturing my mouse clicks and visited links when I am using the browser, and sending that captured data back to Microsoft.