6 ms·

I think Matt lays out a strong argument for why they have made such a stink. And it sounds like a pretty compelling defense for their actions to go public. Bu

by davidu 16y ago

I think Matt lays out a strong argument for why they have made such a stink. And it sounds like a pretty compelling defense for their actions to go public. But... 1) I think they will regret it bigtime when all the attention they are causing makes the bored government officials poke their head in and realize that at a macro level, neither Bing nor Google does anything to protect user search privacy. 2) I think Google has more to lose by bringing this to light than they have to win. Despite Matt's defense, it's hard to see it as anything other than being petty and pedantic. But this is there response to anything that threatens their search pageviews, and that's understandable even if erroneous. They should focus on trying to be innovative again, that was the Google I respected.

coderdude 16y ago
I'm certain they never stopped trying to be innovative, but Bing is able to use that click stream data to reap the benefits of Google's innovations. Google is on the right side of this argument even if it makes them seem whiny to some people.
- angusgr 16y ago
  The part that seems interesting to me is that Google scrapes other entities' data (Reader, News, Books, Scholar) in dozens of other ways, and that behaviour is generally regarded as totally justifiable.
  - magicalist 16y ago
    robots.txt. a more specific example might make for better discussion.
  - coderdude 16y ago
    Because Google has a symbiotic relationship with the entities whose data it's grabbing. It uses that data to drive traffic or attention to the originators and owners of that data. Everyone wants Google to use their data to drive them traffic and those who do not use robots.txt. Bing is being parasitic to Google in this situation by generating no value for them.
    - angusgr 16y ago
      That's not how the AFP felt about Google News when it launched: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_News#News_agencies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_News#News_agencies or how some publishers felt about Google Books when it launched: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Books#Copyright_infringement.2C_fair_use_and_related_issues http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Books#Copyright_infringe...
      - coderdude 16y ago
        The AFP could have opted out if they wanted to. Copyright and fair use laws are not something we should be dragging into this. Your examples have nothing to do with the argument at hand between Google and Bing.
        angusgr 16y ago
        I'd suggest that they're indirectly relevant, because they all address the question of what constitutes fair indexing and what constitutes "copying" or theft of innovative/valuable information. The evidence suggests Bing is scraping clickstream data to work out where its users go and where they stay, and this includes google search URLs with embedded queries. The evidence doesn't seem to suggest that Bing treats google any differently to any other URL on the web. So, the questions could come down to: who has the right to disseminate URL strings and mine them for valuable information? Which seems not indirectly related to "who has the right to digitise other forms of media and mine them for valuable information?"
    - tygorius 16y ago
      Bing is being parasitic to Google in this situation by generating no value for them. Well, perhaps Microsoft thinks its business involves providing value to their customers rather than its competitors. What seems consistently missing from the Google PR campaign has been how Microsoft's behavior is a bad thing for the user.
      - coderdude 16y ago
  - arst 16y ago
    Those other entities can opt-out of being indexed.
magicalist 16y ago
> 1) ...neither Bing nor Google does anything to protect user search privacy. do you mean external or internal privacy? in terms of leaking information, SSL for search is about as good as you're going to get for privacy...if it's the browser or an extension (toolbar) that's watching searches, there's nothing a web site can do. > 2) I think Google has more to lose by bringing this to light than they have to win. That may be true, but there was a pretty cutting colbert segment on this last night where nuances about clickstreams weren't really a concern. personally I think google should have taken the humour route in the first place, as the "smoking gun" isn't all that damning at first sight. it requires some thought, which leaves plenty of room for disagreement and doubt.
- tygorius 16y ago
  I think google should have taken the humour route in the first place Good point. I think the current PR campaign, and really that is what it seems like now, is counterproductive. It used to be the response to Bing was "What, is that like Microsoft Bob for search?" The longer this campaign goes on, the more it increases the user perception of Bing as a serious competitor. Even if true, that's not really a good message to be promoting, even unintentionally.
moultano 16y ago
> They should focus on trying to be innovative again, that was the Google I respected. I work in search quality at Google. I'm busting my ass every day working on fundamental reimaginings of how results get ranked. I'm going to keep doing that regardless of what bing does, because it makes the world a better place, and it's fun. But, suppose the stuff I'm working on works out, and tomorrow Google shows up with a wholly new set of awesome results. This is very possible, there is a ton of headroom left in search quality, I've seen the experiments myself. Then after a few weeks of sniffing clicks, Bing comes up with the same set of revolutionary results, but they have no idea how they got there, they have no idea what the evidence is to rank them there, all they know is that people like those results on Google. Is this fair? Is this ethical? Is this even legal? People in this whole debate have the idea that the user is creating this association between the result and the query, like the user searched through the whole web and came back saying "hey microsoft, check out this great result for this query! I found it! Isn't is awesome?" They aren't. Users click on whatever results you put in front of them, generally starting with the top and working their way down. Ranking results is not a science with some objective optimal conclusion. Ranking results is fundamentally subjective, and while data-driven, is ultimately an opinion. The user does have some discriminating power in this whole feedback loop, but it's miniscule compared to Google figuring out how to show them that result in the first place. Bing is taking the closest proxy that they can practically acquire for Google's opinion, and using it directly in their ranking.
- jdp23 16y ago
  I remember back when people hand-crafted directories for the web. They'd put a lot of work into updating their directory and then in just a couple of days an automated spider would look at their site and a search engine would use their link structure to point everybody directly to the best pages without having to go through the directory. The search engine had no idea of what evidence the directory used. Was it fair? Was it ethical? Was it legal?
  - moultano 16y ago
    robots.txt
spaghetti 16y ago
Google has something to gain from all this. Consider the implications to Bing/Google competition for marketshare in the following scenario: MS decides to bundle and auto-install the Bing toolbar in IE. Also default opt-in to the "share clickstream data with MS" option. Now you have tons of users with the Bing toolbar _and_ using Google to search. MS could "use" or "copy" the results of Google's hardwork on search and pagerank and consequently provide some serious competition for search marketshare.

by davidu 16y ago

coderdude 16y ago

I'm certain they never stopped trying to be innovative, but Bing is able to use that click stream data to reap the benefits of Google's innovations. Google is on the right side of this argument even if it makes them seem whiny to some people.

angusgr 16y ago
The part that seems interesting to me is that Google scrapes other entities' data (Reader, News, Books, Scholar) in dozens of other ways, and that behaviour is generally regarded as totally justifiable.
- magicalist 16y ago
  robots.txt. a more specific example might make for better discussion.
- coderdude 16y ago
  Because Google has a symbiotic relationship with the entities whose data it's grabbing. It uses that data to drive traffic or attention to the originators and owners of that data. Everyone wants Google to use their data to drive them traffic and those who do not use robots.txt. Bing is being parasitic to Google in this situation by generating no value for them.
  - angusgr 16y ago
    That's not how the AFP felt about Google News when it launched: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_News#News_agencies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_News#News_agencies or how some publishers felt about Google Books when it launched: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Books#Copyright_infringement.2C_fair_use_and_related_issues http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Books#Copyright_infringe...
    - coderdude 16y ago
      The AFP could have opted out if they wanted to. Copyright and fair use laws are not something we should be dragging into this. Your examples have nothing to do with the argument at hand between Google and Bing.
      - angusgr 16y ago
        I'd suggest that they're indirectly relevant, because they all address the question of what constitutes fair indexing and what constitutes "copying" or theft of innovative/valuable information. The evidence suggests Bing is scraping clickstream data to work out where its users go and where they stay, and this includes google search URLs with embedded queries. The evidence doesn't seem to suggest that Bing treats google any differently to any other URL on the web. So, the questions could come down to: who has the right to disseminate URL strings and mine them for valuable information? Which seems not indirectly related to "who has the right to digitise other forms of media and mine them for valuable information?"
  - tygorius 16y ago
    Bing is being parasitic to Google in this situation by generating no value for them. Well, perhaps Microsoft thinks its business involves providing value to their customers rather than its competitors. What seems consistently missing from the Google PR campaign has been how Microsoft's behavior is a bad thing for the user.
    - coderdude 16y ago
- arst 16y ago
  Those other entities can opt-out of being indexed.

magicalist 16y ago

> 1) ...neither Bing nor Google does anything to protect user search privacy. do you mean external or internal privacy? in terms of leaking information, SSL for search is about as good as you're going to get for privacy...if it's the browser or an extension (toolbar) that's watching searches, there's nothing a web site can do. > 2) I think Google has more to lose by bringing this to light than they have to win. That may be true, but there was a pretty cutting colbert segment on this last night where nuances about clickstreams weren't really a concern. personally I think google should have taken the humour route in the first place, as the "smoking gun" isn't all that damning at first sight. it requires some thought, which leaves plenty of room for disagreement and doubt.

tygorius 16y ago
I think google should have taken the humour route in the first place Good point. I think the current PR campaign, and really that is what it seems like now, is counterproductive. It used to be the response to Bing was "What, is that like Microsoft Bob for search?" The longer this campaign goes on, the more it increases the user perception of Bing as a serious competitor. Even if true, that's not really a good message to be promoting, even unintentionally.

moultano 16y ago

> They should focus on trying to be innovative again, that was the Google I respected. I work in search quality at Google. I'm busting my ass every day working on fundamental reimaginings of how results get ranked. I'm going to keep doing that regardless of what bing does, because it makes the world a better place, and it's fun. But, suppose the stuff I'm working on works out, and tomorrow Google shows up with a wholly new set of awesome results. This is very possible, there is a ton of headroom left in search quality, I've seen the experiments myself. Then after a few weeks of sniffing clicks, Bing comes up with the same set of revolutionary results, but they have no idea how they got there, they have no idea what the evidence is to rank them there, all they know is that people like those results on Google. Is this fair? Is this ethical? Is this even legal? People in this whole debate have the idea that the user is creating this association between the result and the query, like the user searched through the whole web and came back saying "hey microsoft, check out this great result for this query! I found it! Isn't is awesome?" They aren't. Users click on whatever results you put in front of them, generally starting with the top and working their way down. Ranking results is not a science with some objective optimal conclusion. Ranking results is fundamentally subjective, and while data-driven, is ultimately an opinion. The user does have some discriminating power in this whole feedback loop, but it's miniscule compared to Google figuring out how to show them that result in the first place. Bing is taking the closest proxy that they can practically acquire for Google's opinion, and using it directly in their ranking.

jdp23 16y ago
I remember back when people hand-crafted directories for the web. They'd put a lot of work into updating their directory and then in just a couple of days an automated spider would look at their site and a search engine would use their link structure to point everybody directly to the best pages without having to go through the directory. The search engine had no idea of what evidence the directory used. Was it fair? Was it ethical? Was it legal?
- moultano 16y ago
  robots.txt

spaghetti 16y ago

Google has something to gain from all this. Consider the implications to Bing/Google competition for marketshare in the following scenario: MS decides to bundle and auto-install the Bing toolbar in IE. Also default opt-in to the "share clickstream data with MS" option. Now you have tons of users with the Bing toolbar _and_ using Google to search. MS could "use" or "copy" the results of Google's hardwork on search and pagerank and consequently provide some serious competition for search marketshare.