Everything started in the summer when Google noticed that an incorrectly spelt request entered into their search engine ("torsorophy" instead of "tarsorrhaphy") displayed the correct search result, while Bing displayed nothing. A little later, Bing started to provide the same result as Google with the poorly spelt request.
Once Google noticed this, an investigation was undertaken and other examples were discovered, leading to Google undertaking a small experiment. One hundred bogus requests were created, with the subjects being something that a user would never enter (like "delhipublicschool40 chdjob"). Google linked the results of these requests to a real Web site, although the corresponding site had nothing to do with the request.
According to Google, there was absolutely no reason for any search engine to return the associated web page voluntarily, although this is what happened with Bing. Not all of the tests were verified though, with less than 10% being established, although this was enough to confirm Google’s suspicions.
Recovering user’s information The experiment was conducted under precise conditions, and for Google the "copying" is the fruit of a combination with Internet Explorer 8 which sends Microsoft information via the sites suggestion function and the Bing toolbar which can send data via Microsoft’s improved user experience program. Among the information sent, there are also searches conducted with Google… the bogus one’s included.
It goes without saying that Microsoft hasn’t really appreciated Google’s conclusions. Microsoft’s Bing manager, Harry Shum explained that more than 1 000 different signals and functions are used in Bing’s classification algorithm: "A small piece of that is clickstream data we get from some of our customers, who opt-in to sharing anonymous data as they navigate the web in order to help us improve the experience for all users. To be clear, we learn from all of our customers."
This defence isn’t necessarily convincing, especially since Harry Shum preferred to criticise Google’s experiment and their “spy-novelesque” conclusions.
Google’s attack was certainly not made at this time by coincidence. It has come about at the same time that Microsoft is organizing the Farsight summit with industry representatives to discuss the quality and future of web searching. During this summit, Bing reminded everyone that Google used information recovered via Google’s Chrome’s Google toolbar and omnibox, in addition to the improvement of their search results thanks to social networks.
