Bing Steals Google Search Results

A reader was pretty upset with me about my blog entry about search, Bing and stealing Google results. He called me an idiot. To which I must confess that I agree with him. I am an idiot. About a great many things. But, as anyone who reads my blog knows, what he should have really called me is a hair filled, hairy fat boy. Which I would also have to agree with. So just for fun, I am including his comments and my response below.

Blog - Comment List

• Joe

  Wed, Feb 9 2011 6:39 PM

  Mate, you are an idiot. Google proved that Bing was using Google's search to return results. The end.

Joe,

While I do agree with your passion and sentiment. Especially about me being an idiot, the whole Bing steals google search results is not so clear. The best way to explain it is this. If I write stupid words in a blog (which I do all of the time) and google crawls my blog, I know that these words will show up in the search results. So is google stealing my content? Well, I guess, but nobody ever thinks about it that way.

On the other hand, if I hire twenty engineers to type in garbage words (which we enter here all of the time as well), and then they show up in the query completion field as people type words into the search box, then Bing/Google are "stealing" those words, but nobody considers this stealing either because "words" are free.

If I point my search engine at Bing and return all of the results as if I created them, then that is stealing and most people would actually consider that stealing as well. So that really is stealing.

Also, if I capture clicks when people click on a link. Is that stealing? Hm. Yes. But most people don't complain about it other than for privacy reasons. Not because it is "stealing". Just like words, I am capturing clicks. So if someone comes along and tracks what people are clicking on while using a competitor's search engine, is that stealing?

But that wasn't the point of my article. The article was about how and what google was suggesting. My problem was that they were implying that the Bing search engine is pointed at google. The third paragraph from above. And basically "stealing" all of their results. Which they clearly are not. The real question is. Can or should a company capture clicks from people while they are using a competitor's search engine. That's the question. But before you answer whether that as stealing, I would think about all of the companies that capture clicks out there and about everyone and everything that they are doing.

I don't have the answers. I am just suggesting that it is not as easy as creating a press announcement lying about what a compeditor is doing and just saying that Bing is "stealing" search results. Because that is a lie. Some would argue that analyzing Google search results is stealing and I could see that point of view, but there again, there are thousands of SEO companies that do that every day. So it still isn't clear to me specifically. But it isn't "stealing" results as google was implying.

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And that's that. You tell me. Is Bing really stealing search results by capturing what people are clicking on when they search using google? I would really like to know. Comment away. I have not ever deleted a comment, and have always published what people say about the blog. And I intend to keep doing so. I do reserve the right to delete anything that doesn't discuss anything about the blog or is illegal, etc. So have fun.

We'll leave the seat up for you.