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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

by greyman 16y ago

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.

dekz 16y ago
Microsoft uses behaviour I doubt they are only targeting Google. But I completely agree, the data is not being mined from Google, it's a relationship for search term a to page b created by the user, not stolen from Google.
- moultano 16y ago
  Google is the one creating the association, not the user. The relationship between term a and page b was created by Google, and confirmed by a user. People don't click on search results that aren't there.
  - stanleydrew 16y ago
    This is the most important comment I've read so far on this issue. What everything comes down to is whether user generated associations between searches and results via clicks are fair game as a signal. As this comment points out, there is a decent argument that searchers on Google or other engines aren't the ones creating the associations, and therefore perhaps Bing has no right to use that data.
  - evgen 16y ago
    Google is not creating the association. Users are creating the associations, Google is discovering them and presenting them back to other users, and subsequent users are confirming the associations. In this case Google engineers, masquerading as users, created associations, then Google presented those associations back to the user, and Bing noticed the association between the term and the page. The relationship between a term and a page was not created by Google, it was created by users. Google just indexes everything and makes note of these associations, but its does not create the link in the first place.
    - moultano 16y ago
      Users are creating the associations, Google is discovering them and presenting them back to other users, and subsequent users are confirming the associations. Going down this road of debate, we'll be getting into the semantics of "inventing" vs. "discovering." Turning data into ranking is the whole purpose of a search engine, just as turning data into theory is the purpose of science, and turning experience into art is the purpose of art. Essentially here, we're debating whether search ranking is more like science, in which there's a correct answer that you are uncovering, or like art, in which all of the product is subjective. Having worked in the field for five years, I'd argue that it is far closer to art than science. Google's rankings are its subjective determination, and the courts have agreed that Google's rankings are its constitutionally protected speech. Though the data may all ultimately come from the human-created internet, the transformation of that data is still important, and subjective. To claim otherwise is to miss the whole point of search technology in the first place.
dansingerman 16y ago
I know this has been posited, but has it been confirmed anywhere that this is the case?
luigi 16y ago
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.
- checker 16y ago
  Would Bing then get called out by Google for the inevitable 'anticompetitive' lowering of Google's Bing search rankings?
- newt 16y ago
  the effect is the same as intentional scraping and outright stealing The google engineers intentionally sent this click data to Bing, so is Bing really stealing? It's odd to act surprised when Bing uses the data that was intentionally sent to it. Bing could specifically ignore Google search results pages when it is tracking clicks, but is that legitimate? Google scrapes everything, why shouldn't Bing?
  - ohashi 16y ago
    They were testing to see if it was true. Many users are doing it, bing is taking data for non-google engineers too.
    - newt 16y ago
      The point of collecting click data is not to target google engineers, it is to collect data from masses of people doing regular searches and to improve them by seeing which links get clicked on, so obviously Bing is "taking data for non-google engineers". Furthermore, there's no indication that google search results pages are even distinguished from other pages in this. In fact, the data that it takes from Google engineers for carefully engineered corner-case searches is the exception.
- nlogn 16y ago
  I don't even think they should just blacklist Google. They should just respect robots.txt. edit: I should have clarified. I know that the Bing crawler likely respects robots.txt, but if they are using clickstream info to build their index, it seems right that they should respect robots.txt there as well, no?
nailer 16y ago
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?
- Encosia 16y ago
  The Google engineers who planted the phrases were running the Bing toolbar themselves. That part isn't in question.
  - nailer 16y ago
    So MS are saying Google themselves uploaded the data to MS by using Bing toolbar? Does Google agree their engineers did this?
    - Encosia 16y ago
      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.
      - nailer 16y ago
        No. There's a difference between having the toolbar installed but typing something into the google.com directly (which actually occurred) and typing something into the Bing toolbar.
        Encosia 16y ago
        Even if you exclusively use Google's web interface to search, the Bing toolbar gathers anonymous data about your browsing (if you've got that option enabled). It's fairly clear about that when you install it. To my knowledge, all of these search engine toolbars gather statistics on a broader scale than specifically what's typed into their search fields, Google's included.
bellaire 16y ago
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.
chawco 16y ago
My issue with it is this: Had Google not created a better algorithm would those users be clicking on those links? If Google shut down today would Microsoft be able to associate those sites with the search terms? I should think the answer to the above is 'no' in both cases, which is why this is cheating. It's probably not illegal, but I find the practice to be unethical. Ask yourself this: If Google shut down today, would Microsoft be providing more relevant, equally relevant or less relevant results for those searches? If the answer is less relevant, then I think it's clear there's been a lapse of ethics.
- Splines 16y ago
  I don't think it's so clear. Is drafting unethical? In any case, for all you know, if everyone started using the Bing Toolbar, it may provide better clickstream data, causing more relevant Bing results.
- jshen 16y ago
  Ask yourself this: If Stackoverflow shut down today, would Google be providing more relevant, equally relevant or less relevant results for programming related searches? If the answer is less relevant, then I think it's clear there's been a lapse of ethics.
  - ariwilson 16y ago
    The difference is that Stackoverflow says "please index us" while Google says "please don't index us".
    - jshen 16y ago
      and they don't need to index or crawl google pages to do what they are doing.
haberman 16y ago
> They use clickstream data from Bing toolbar users to improve their search results. If that leads to Bing absorbing Google's results, and eg. suggesting spelling corrections they would have never figured out except that Google thought of them first, then they are indeed stealing results, whether they meant to or not, and need to stop. George Harrison didn't mean to copy the song "He's So Fine" when he wrote his song "My Sweet Lord," but he lost the lawsuit anyway and had to pay damages. Whether you call it "clickstream" or "user behavior," Bing is incorporating an association that could only have come from Google, and Google's robots.txt makes it very clear that robots are not allowed to mine search results. > But that's not unethical, and Google is doing the same thing. As has been mentioned many times, Google does not take user behavior from the toolbar as a signal for ranking.
- KirinDave 16y ago
  > If that leads to Bing absorbing Google's results, and eg. suggesting spelling corrections they would have never figured out except that Google thought of them first, then they are indeed stealing results, whether they meant to or not, and need to stop. Even if that's indirect information? For example, the Bing toolbar doesn't really say (in Gargamel's American voice for effect), "Nyhaahaha! I see these google search results! I will steal!" No, rather it says, "Ahh, after the result of a query to this site, we then leave the site to go to this page. If that query and this destination page appear in aggregate, Bing should take notice." When I first learned how the Bing toolbar did this, I had two reactions: "Oh, that's clever. It's like engaging your users to help you be a directed crawler. It's 'querytext', which is not unlike google's innovation, 'linktext'." and then "But I would still never install the Bing toolbar. Man, that thing is a sad clown show." Honestly, it's one of Bing's smarter ideas. There is only so far pure crawling and statistical analysis can go; there simply isn't enough data there and everyone knows how to use that data to great effect. Every search engine is incorporating new realtime communications and user behavior streams into their search results. Google certainly does this, albeit without a toolbar. Bing simply has the entire Microsoft software stack to lobby for help, so if someone opts into the Bing toolbar, they can opt into submitting additional information to improving the Bing index. I'm not a big fan of MS or Bing, but in this they are only culpable for being clever. They are using querytext to improve relevance. I'm told you could make the same stunt work from a Wikipedia search box, leading to a wikipedia page.

by greyman 16y ago

dekz 16y ago

Microsoft uses behaviour I doubt they are only targeting Google. But I completely agree, the data is not being mined from Google, it's a relationship for search term a to page b created by the user, not stolen from Google.

moultano 16y ago
Google is the one creating the association, not the user. The relationship between term a and page b was created by Google, and confirmed by a user. People don't click on search results that aren't there.
- stanleydrew 16y ago
  This is the most important comment I've read so far on this issue. What everything comes down to is whether user generated associations between searches and results via clicks are fair game as a signal. As this comment points out, there is a decent argument that searchers on Google or other engines aren't the ones creating the associations, and therefore perhaps Bing has no right to use that data.
- evgen 16y ago
  Google is not creating the association. Users are creating the associations, Google is discovering them and presenting them back to other users, and subsequent users are confirming the associations. In this case Google engineers, masquerading as users, created associations, then Google presented those associations back to the user, and Bing noticed the association between the term and the page. The relationship between a term and a page was not created by Google, it was created by users. Google just indexes everything and makes note of these associations, but its does not create the link in the first place.
  - moultano 16y ago
    Users are creating the associations, Google is discovering them and presenting them back to other users, and subsequent users are confirming the associations. Going down this road of debate, we'll be getting into the semantics of "inventing" vs. "discovering." Turning data into ranking is the whole purpose of a search engine, just as turning data into theory is the purpose of science, and turning experience into art is the purpose of art. Essentially here, we're debating whether search ranking is more like science, in which there's a correct answer that you are uncovering, or like art, in which all of the product is subjective. Having worked in the field for five years, I'd argue that it is far closer to art than science. Google's rankings are its subjective determination, and the courts have agreed that Google's rankings are its constitutionally protected speech. Though the data may all ultimately come from the human-created internet, the transformation of that data is still important, and subjective. To claim otherwise is to miss the whole point of search technology in the first place.

dansingerman 16y ago

I know this has been posited, but has it been confirmed anywhere that this is the case?

luigi 16y ago

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.

checker 16y ago
Would Bing then get called out by Google for the inevitable 'anticompetitive' lowering of Google's Bing search rankings?
newt 16y ago
the effect is the same as intentional scraping and outright stealing The google engineers intentionally sent this click data to Bing, so is Bing really stealing? It's odd to act surprised when Bing uses the data that was intentionally sent to it. Bing could specifically ignore Google search results pages when it is tracking clicks, but is that legitimate? Google scrapes everything, why shouldn't Bing?
- ohashi 16y ago
  They were testing to see if it was true. Many users are doing it, bing is taking data for non-google engineers too.
  - newt 16y ago
    The point of collecting click data is not to target google engineers, it is to collect data from masses of people doing regular searches and to improve them by seeing which links get clicked on, so obviously Bing is "taking data for non-google engineers". Furthermore, there's no indication that google search results pages are even distinguished from other pages in this. In fact, the data that it takes from Google engineers for carefully engineered corner-case searches is the exception.
nlogn 16y ago
I don't even think they should just blacklist Google. They should just respect robots.txt. edit: I should have clarified. I know that the Bing crawler likely respects robots.txt, but if they are using clickstream info to build their index, it seems right that they should respect robots.txt there as well, no?

nailer 16y ago

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?

Encosia 16y ago
The Google engineers who planted the phrases were running the Bing toolbar themselves. That part isn't in question.
- nailer 16y ago
  So MS are saying Google themselves uploaded the data to MS by using Bing toolbar? Does Google agree their engineers did this?
  - Encosia 16y ago
    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.
    - nailer 16y ago
      No. There's a difference between having the toolbar installed but typing something into the google.com directly (which actually occurred) and typing something into the Bing toolbar.
      - Encosia 16y ago
        Even if you exclusively use Google's web interface to search, the Bing toolbar gathers anonymous data about your browsing (if you've got that option enabled). It's fairly clear about that when you install it. To my knowledge, all of these search engine toolbars gather statistics on a broader scale than specifically what's typed into their search fields, Google's included.

bellaire 16y ago

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.

chawco 16y ago

My issue with it is this: Had Google not created a better algorithm would those users be clicking on those links? If Google shut down today would Microsoft be able to associate those sites with the search terms? I should think the answer to the above is 'no' in both cases, which is why this is cheating. It's probably not illegal, but I find the practice to be unethical. Ask yourself this: If Google shut down today, would Microsoft be providing more relevant, equally relevant or less relevant results for those searches? If the answer is less relevant, then I think it's clear there's been a lapse of ethics.

Splines 16y ago
I don't think it's so clear. Is drafting unethical? In any case, for all you know, if everyone started using the Bing Toolbar, it may provide better clickstream data, causing more relevant Bing results.
jshen 16y ago
Ask yourself this: If Stackoverflow shut down today, would Google be providing more relevant, equally relevant or less relevant results for programming related searches? If the answer is less relevant, then I think it's clear there's been a lapse of ethics.
- ariwilson 16y ago
  The difference is that Stackoverflow says "please index us" while Google says "please don't index us".
  - jshen 16y ago
    and they don't need to index or crawl google pages to do what they are doing.

haberman 16y ago

> They use clickstream data from Bing toolbar users to improve their search results. If that leads to Bing absorbing Google's results, and eg. suggesting spelling corrections they would have never figured out except that Google thought of them first, then they are indeed stealing results, whether they meant to or not, and need to stop. George Harrison didn't mean to copy the song "He's So Fine" when he wrote his song "My Sweet Lord," but he lost the lawsuit anyway and had to pay damages. Whether you call it "clickstream" or "user behavior," Bing is incorporating an association that could only have come from Google, and Google's robots.txt makes it very clear that robots are not allowed to mine search results. > But that's not unethical, and Google is doing the same thing. As has been mentioned many times, Google does not take user behavior from the toolbar as a signal for ranking.

KirinDave 16y ago
> If that leads to Bing absorbing Google's results, and eg. suggesting spelling corrections they would have never figured out except that Google thought of them first, then they are indeed stealing results, whether they meant to or not, and need to stop. Even if that's indirect information? For example, the Bing toolbar doesn't really say (in Gargamel's American voice for effect), "Nyhaahaha! I see these google search results! I will steal!" No, rather it says, "Ahh, after the result of a query to this site, we then leave the site to go to this page. If that query and this destination page appear in aggregate, Bing should take notice." When I first learned how the Bing toolbar did this, I had two reactions: "Oh, that's clever. It's like engaging your users to help you be a directed crawler. It's 'querytext', which is not unlike google's innovation, 'linktext'." and then "But I would still never install the Bing toolbar. Man, that thing is a sad clown show." Honestly, it's one of Bing's smarter ideas. There is only so far pure crawling and statistical analysis can go; there simply isn't enough data there and everyone knows how to use that data to great effect. Every search engine is incorporating new realtime communications and user behavior streams into their search results. Google certainly does this, albeit without a toolbar. Bing simply has the entire Microsoft software stack to lobby for help, so if someone opts into the Bing toolbar, they can opt into submitting additional information to improving the Bing index. I'm not a big fan of MS or Bing, but in this they are only culpable for being clever. They are using querytext to improve relevance. I'm told you could make the same stunt work from a Wikipedia search box, leading to a wikipedia page.