Microsoft: 'We do not copy Google's results'

The statements by the Microsoft people remind me of "I did not have sexual relations with that woman."<p>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.

I'm quite stunned that Google allowed this story to break.<p>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?<p>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.<p>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.

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.

"... we embrace and extend them."

"We do not copy Google's results."<p>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.<p>This naturally doesn't mean that Bing copy Google 100%, of course. But that's not what today's news is about.<p>A very weak 'reply' from Microsoft which again seems to pretty much confirm that they ARE 'looking at' certain Google results.

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.<p>EDIT: I found the post:<p><a href="http://www.bing.com/community/site_blogs/b/search/archive/2011/02/01/thoughts-on-search-quality.aspx?form=MFEHPG&#38;publ=TWITTER&#38;crea=TEXT_MFEHPG_SM0201_bb0201_TW005_1x1" rel="nofollow">http://www.bing.com/community/site_blogs/b/search/archive/20...</a><p>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."

I guess that's best possible defense for them at the moment.<p>"We do not copy Google's results (however, we do use them in 'creative' ways!)"

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

"It’s a point of pride to Google that it believes it has the best spelling correction system of any search engine"<p>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 :-)

Pragmatically, the following scenario underlines why this is practice is overall bad for the consumer.<p><pre><code> 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.</code></pre>

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.

This remains as relevant as ever...<p>"Bad artists copy. Good artists steal." -Picasso

Microsoft: "Music you buy from us Plays For Sure.(TM)"<p>(the above is just my interpretation).<p>Is there a pattern here?

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

MS caught on:<p>- optimization for SunSpider [1]<p>- now scrapping google SERP<p>Curious what is next? Linux code is in Win7?<p>[1] <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1913102" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1913102</a>