Microsoft claims Google used 'click fraud' to fool Bing

MAINTAINER OF THE COPYCAT SEARCH ENGINE Bing, Microsoft has been forced to defend itself against the accusation that it copied search results from Google and bunged them into Bing.

Yesterday Google accused Microsoft of tracking users' search patterns on Google's search engine and transferring the results onto Bing. Google claimed that in experiments consisting of synthetic queries that spewed out artificial and irrelevant search results, the very same results were returned by Bing weeks later.

Microsoft's plan to address Google's damning evidence was not only to admit to the fact that it tracks users' clicks, but to go on the offensive. Tracking Internet Explorer users is "one of more than a thousand inputs into our [Bing] ranking algorithm", said Yusuf Mehdi, SVP of Microsoft's Online Services Division. Mehdi then claimed that Google's experiments were deliberately set up to fool Bing, labelling them a "honeypot attack".

Mehdi wasn't finished with denigrating Google's work, saying the tactic is also known as "click fraud" and that it is "the same type of attack employed by spammers on the web to trick consumers and produce bogus search results". Sadly Mehdi ended his rant with a bit of an open question, asking, "What does all this cloak and dagger click fraud prove?" He added that the industry already knew that Microsoft was tracking its users.

The problem for Mehdi is that while he denied that Bing copies Google's search results, the fact that Microsoft tracks its IE users' web behaviour wasn't widespread knowledge. And while Mehdi's rubbishing of Google's experiments as click fraud makes him and Microsoft look desperate, he didn't address the underlying question on everyone's minds, why did the nonsensical results manufactured by Google end up on Bing?

Even if Bing copies Google, its algorithms should be able to weed out irrelevant links. However Microsoft tries to spin this deeply embarrassing story, it's obvious that its claim, reiterated by Mehdi, of providing relevant search results doesn't hold water.

So to answer's Mehdi's question of what Google's investigation proves, at the very least it managed to smoke out Microsoft and got under the skin of a high ranking Microsoft official. It highlights some of the questionable methods used by Microsoft to compete with its search rival.

Mehdi's apparently furious and ill-advised response to Google's valid accusations, which were backed up with evidence, will do little to help Microsoft in its efforts to pass Bing off as a serious competitor to Google. µ