Google fell into the classic trap of confirmation bias with bad scientific method. And thus the test was 'rigged', they never had a control variable.
Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that "bing is using click data"? The fact that google.com is in a lot of that click data is a questionable decision and the root cause of all this drama.
The only way the words "Bing copies google" would be justified is if MS were directly querying Google on certain keywords and ripping off search results. Google have provided no evidence to suggest this. I expected the commmenters of Techcrunch to be unable to grasp this, but it seems that HN is often like this too.
It would even be justified if they were harvesting click data only from Google (or explicitly treating that click data differently), because then they're just doing the last one, but obfuscating it: it would be like refusing to bribe a politician directly, but instead making a large "investment" in a corporation they own.
It's not a justified claim if they built a mechanism that genuinely gathers interesting data, and would continue to do so in Google's absence. I think Microsoft is claiming this, but their responses have been so murky that it's not 100% clear. Google certainly hasn't produced evidence that renders this version implausible.
If you really want examples, just watch Fox News or MSNBC for fifteen minutes. You'll probably see at least one or two examples in there somewhere.
"Bing results increasingly look like an incomplete, stale version of Google results—a cheap imitation"
Which they have NOT demonstrated. Their results can easily be interpreted that they imitate user clicks.
That is not the hypothesis. The hypothesis is "Bing has results in its index that it could not have gotten in any other way than from Google search results." Their experiment does indeed confirm that hypothesis.
The inverse of the conclusions of their experiment are also incorrectly assumed (Google results, using IE8/Bing toolbar, make Bing results != Bing results, when using the IE8/Bing toolbar, are from Google).
What is that scenario?
They never tested the fact that it could have come from any other website as well. Thus, they can't conclude that Bing is copying Google or whether its copying the user's browsing behavior.
That's all Google is saying.
> They never tested the fact that it could have come from any other website as well.
It doesn't matter, Google is only complaining about what Bing has copied from Google. What Bing copies from other sites is between them and the other site.
The fact is that they used unique search terms that link to unique subjects. They ONLY submitted searches using what they described. That means the only places those searches passed through were the OS, toolbar, IE and Google. They know Google received those searches, did it propagate to Bing?
That's it. They didn't need to offer a placebo to anyone. It's like throwing a ball and hearing an echo. You don't need to NOT throw a ball just to make sure it doesn't echo.