BING BUSTED! Copying Google Results.

[bigben6]

Google is accusing Bing of results stealing. Bing is now accusing Google of engauged in a version of Click Fraud that spammers use to get links to their bogus/fraudulent websites into the top results for popular words. It just so happens the link google used was RIM and the "popular word" was MBZRXPGJYS.

This has turned very much into a he said she said debacle with Gooogle and Bing pointing fingers at each other. I don't think we've heard the full story yet.

If bing wanst copying google in the first place... google could not have tricked bing...

 

[DaveHCYJ]

If bing wanst copying google in the first place... google could not have tricked bing...

That is sort of like saying "If you weren't in the bank in the first place no one could have framed you for robbing it."

It doesn't really seem like copying to me if google was forcing (Click Fraud) the information on them, and even then they could only trick Bing into showing 7 or 9 out of 100 or 9% out of 100+ or 12% (all depending on which news article you read (glad these guys can keep their facts strait)) of the honeypot links.

Of course the operative word in that first sentance is "if" because its all Google's word against Bing's and its hard to know what the truth is.

 

[Automata]

That is sort of like saying "If you weren't in the bank in the first place no one could have framed you for robbing it."

That statement doesn't compare to the current situation. Why? The example places the person as an innocent. Microsoft is not that. They got caught stealing the money from the bank.

 

[bigben6]

That is sort of like saying "If you weren't in the bank in the first place no one could have framed you for robbing it."

It doesn't really seem like copying to me if google was forcing (Click Fraud) the information on them, and even then they could only trick Bing into showing 7 or 9 out of 100 or 9% out of 100+ or 12% (all depending on which news article you read (glad these guys can keep their facts strait)) of the honeypot links.

Of course the operative word in that first sentance is "if" because its all Google's word against Bing's and its hard to know what the truth is.

You keep ignoring that ONLY bing was susceptible to this "forcing" as you call it... 9% is HUGE when it is 0% for yahoo and ask.com and msn...

Quite calling it click fraud too, click fraud has a monetary motive, Google made no money off of this in any way shape or form... that is just Microsoft mis using a word in an attempt to get a sympathy vote...

Worst case scenario for google: Bing is in the right and they mad an accusation they could not hold up in court.

Worst case scenario for bing: Google is right and bing is breaking numerous copy right laws, and data theft

 

[DaveHCYJ]

That statement doesn't compare to the current situation. Why? The example places the person as an innocent. Microsoft is not that. They got caught stealing the money from the bank.

They got caught with money, they didn't get caught with stealing.

If someone ran up to you in the street and shoved their wallet in your pocket and started screaming Theif Theif, yeah it looks bad, but the situation isn't much more than "He said I stole it" "I said he framed me".

It probably wouldn't look as bad if MS didn't anonymize their data and if they could come back and say here look, look all this Click Fraud traffic coming from Google's IPs. If they could do that the story would be flipped a whole 180 degrees with egg on Google's face.

I guess I'm not saying MS has to be innocent, I'm just trying to play Devil's advocate in this thread, because it doesn't seem to me like this is a clear cut case of "MS is Evil lets all hate them" like the rest of this thread is implying.

I find it laughable that anyone is still defending Bing at this point.

 

[Shelnutt2]

It doesn't really seem like copying to me if google was forcing (Click Fraud) the information on them, and even then they could only trick Bing into showing 7 or 9 out of 100 or 9% out of 100+ or 12% (all depending on which news article you read (glad these guys can keep their facts strait)) of the honeypot links.

I think the key is here is a line I heard on white collar the other day,

Burke: It's not a con!
Caffrey: Well, technically, it is a con.
Burke: It's a sting.
Caffrey: Yeah, but a sting's another word for... Okay, let's start the sting.

Did google trick bing? Yes. Was it click fraud? No, it's a sting. Google was trying to catch bing in the act. They were not trying to cause harm/do bad things with the "click fraud".

Bottom line:
Google thought bing was tracking user searches and clicks, the incorporating it into their results. Google set up a sting. Found information, and a connection. They brought it to the public. Now yes it is a small % that was caught, but in my opinion that proves that usage data is just a part of their overall algorithm and not even the largest part.

Does bing user data from user clicks, yes. Does this effect their search? yes. Do they get data from IE users who use google? yes. Are they stealing? Yes they are using google's algorithm via users (so it's not exact because the user does effect what is clicked but if google is doing its job they will pick links on the first page). Bing got caught doing this, would this evidence hold up in court? It'd be a real tough battle for google (note: no where did anything say anything about this being a legal battle, but *if* it were to go to court I'm just making a comparison). Is it a huge deal? Not really, at least not yet. Should Bing stop it's opt-in program? Nope. Should they limit data to avoid getting data from searches? Yes.

 

[DaveHCYJ]

You keep ignoring that ONLY bing was susceptible to this "forcing" as you call it... 9% is HUGE when it is 0% for yahoo and ask.com and msn...

Did Google use Click Fraud type attacks on yahoo and others? Do yahoo and others even use click streaming data making them susceptible to Click Fraud?

Quite calling it click fraud too, click fraud has a monetary motive, Google made no money off of this in any way shape or form... that is just Microsoft mis using a word in an attempt to get a sympathy vote...

Ok wether its "Click Faud" or [come up with your own word for the hack/attack] it doesn't really matter what term you use. I'm not talking sympathy or anything, I'm just talking facts. Google claims MS stole search results; MS claims Google planted them their via [whatever term you've come up with for that kind of spam attack]

Worst case scenario for google: Bing is in the right and they mad an accusation they could not hold up in court.

There are no courts involed. Worst case for Google is they look bad for trying to frame Bing and got caught in the act.

Worst case scenario for bing: Google is right and bing is breaking numerous copy right laws, and data theft
No laws broken. Worst case Bing did copy Google's results and looks bad for doing it.

 

[DaveHCYJ]

Did google trick bing? Yes. Was it click fraud? No, it's a sting. Google was trying to catch bing in the act. They were not trying to cause harm/do bad things with the "click fraud".

Well I guess the point is that you don't know if it was a sting or a con/frame. There is a slight difference between them. A sting is setting money out on the corner and using cameras to watch Bing come and take it. A con/frame is shoving money in Bing's pockets and then taking pictures afterwards as Bing is pulling the money back out.

Maybe "click fraud" isn't the technically correct term, but the term isn't important. Maybe the term should be "spammer tickery", I don't know. The point is, a tactic exists where spammers (or possibly google) can generate lots of fake clicks to trick Bing into thinking a particular website (spammers website/RIM) is more popular for a certain search term. And since we're only relying on the word of Google and Bing, there is no way to know if Google engaged in those tactics or not.

 

[Automata]

The term is very important because it changes how the situation is viewed. If you say "click fraud", then it look bad on Google. If you say it was "stolen", then it looks bad on Microsoft.

 

[DaveHCYJ]

The term is very important because it changes how the situation is viewed. If you say "click fraud", then it look bad on Google. If you say it was "stolen", then it looks bad on Microsoft.

Quite true. And since we don't know which company is telling the truth or half truths we can't jump to conclusions of either "click fraud" OR "stealing".

 

[bigben6]

Did Google use Click Fraud type attacks on yahoo and others? Do yahoo and others even use click streaming data making them susceptible to Click Fraud?

No and THAT'S THE ENTIRE POINT... how can you not see that?

Ok wether its "Click Faud" or [come up with your own word for the hack/attack] it doesn't really matter what term you use. I'm not talking sympathy or anything, I'm just talking facts. Google claims MS stole search results; MS claims Google planted them their via [whatever term you've come up with for that kind of spam attack]

You have to ask yourself, if google is just planting things without motivation, why not pick yahoo, or msn, because only bing suddenly showed strong correlations with google.... this is not random...

No law broken. Worst case Bing did copy Google's results and looks bad for doing it.

I apologize, I did not realize you were a nationally recognized authority on internet fraud, copy right, or digital information laws.

Can you please link me to where this case was taken into court and the court ruled no laws were broken, I missed that....

You keep picking one tree out of the forrest that suites your needs, rather than seeing the entirety of the picture...


Google saw a correlation ONLY with BING...

They followed it up with a sting/click fraud (cause they made so much money) in a very controlled and easily monitored matter

When their sting produced statistically significant data in a short time (10% correlation in 2 weeks) they too their data to an independent source; PCmag.

Google was up front about how they went about acquiring their data.

Bing initially stuttered and claimed fraud/trickery but never denied the accusation directly only claiming "Opt-in programs like the toolbar help us with clickstream data, one of many input signals we and other search engines use to help rank sites" and only LATER claimed that they did an update that conveniently coincides with googles noticed correlations.

That is the totality of what happened, don't you think if yahoo had the same correlation google would go after them too? They are a much bigger fish to fry....

Try and see the forest through the trees...

 

[CompuTamer]

Let's try not to let this turn into a flame war. I know it's easy to let it get to that, but we're more mature than flame wars here

-never used Bing in his life because of all the clutter on the home page-

 

[tom10167]

It is exactly this callous disregard for the overall health and well being of others, and focus on what serves ME now that has led us to the fantastic economy we are in now...

"who cares if bing is stealing googles results if it helps me"
"Who cars if buying drugs in canada hurts the us economy if it helps me save 5 bucks"
"who cares if im stealing music or movies"
"its not my fault they gave me 5 bucks too much in change"

Me. me. me.... get over yourself and look at the bigger picture, you think the help people give you on this forum allows them ti wait as little as possible, not they LIKE helping other people...
end of rant

Do me a favor and stop talking to me. First of all the "me me me attitude" has been around since the beginning of time, it's human nature. Second of all last I checked the US standard of living is still very close to the top of the world.

Thirdly, you don't know me, and I'm thankful for that. You have no idea how much I donate to charity, what I do with my free time or my beliefs on anything outside of a search engine that profits exactly $0/year from me. If anything I'm helping Google because I don't use their servers.

My fourth and final point: Nobody is completely good. The difference between you and me is I don't pretend to be some Mother Teresa to impress my peers and I don't use a public forum as a soapbox to preach about how bad other people are in a thread about search engines.

I 72 in 65mph zones too, OH THE HUMANITY!

 

[Automata]

Seriously, drop it. This is stupid.

 

[TheGreySpectre]

Correlation does not imply causation.

It should not be surprising that multiple search engines come to the same conclusion. Its like asking two people what the answer to 1+1 is and then being shocked when they both say 2. On top of that there is only some overlap, not complete overlap. But maybe Bing is doing that on purpose as part of their consipiracy?

Google found a number of search patterns that yielded zero results in either bing or google. These were very very weird patterns that no one would legitimately search for (random character strings).

Google then hard coded those searches to return some very specific results that had absolutely nothing to do with what was actually searched for. With any sort of search algorithm that goes off content there would be zero reason for the results to be returned.

Yet bing returned them these results a few days later. How did bing decide to associate those very specific strings with those very specific sites?


Your analogy does not work because there was no correlation between what was searched for and what was returned. It was a rigged exam. This is more like a teacher asking the question what is 1+1 and having their answer sheet say 379.654. Everyone who is actually doing the job correctly will say 1+1=2, but the guy who looked at your rigged answer sheet will say 1+1=379.654. The chances of him randomly pulling that number out of his butt are so extremely unlikely that you have pretty much proven without a doubt that he stole the answer sheet instead of doing his own work.

 

[DaveHCYJ]

Yet bing returned them these results a few days later. How did bing decide to associate those very specific strings with those very specific sites

Bing returned those results because google planted them there. By planted them, I don't mean on google's own site, I mean google got them in Bing's results by using the same techniques spammers use to get their own spam links on to Bing. Or at least thats what Bing claims.

Google claims this, Bing claims that, either way this thread needs to die.

 

[mbigna]

Fixed for you...

Bing returned those results because google planted them there they copied Google's faux returns. By planted copied them, I don't mean on google's own site, I mean google got them in Bing's results by using the same techniques spammers use to get their own spam forensic security experts use (honeypots) to track criminal hackers. Or at least thats what Bing claims.

Google claims this, Bing claims that, either way this thread needs to die.

Says the writer who has lost the argument (and is looking foolish while still defending Bing)...

Here is another article:

http://www.computerworld.com/s/arti...nd_search_engines?taxonomyId=212&pageNumber=1

Best quote: "It's the Bill Clinton defense: It all depends on what your definition of "copy" is."

Bottom line--Bing admits they use other search engines to [sarcasm] "refine" [/sarcasm] their results.