Microsoft’s new search engine Bing is accused of ripping off Google’s code in an effort to become a major search engine. As Google’s anti-webspam engineer, Matt Cutts claims Microsoft’s Bing directly copied Google search results to Bing search results. Web search results are big business for search engines which bring in millions of advertising revenue for Google and search engine optimization business along with their clients. To gauge whether Bing was stealing their results Google set a trap for the new search engine.
Google set up false and arbitrary search engine results that didn’t employ their usual algorithms, also utilized by search engine optimization companies. Within weeks the same fake search results showed up on the Bing search engine. Microsoft’s VP Harry Shum defended the practice by claiming users were willing to share data to improve Bing’s capabilities as search engine but Google considers it theft. In the world of search engines Google is number one with Yahoo being the second largest. Microsoft doesn’t seem to think they have done anything wrong and defends the practice. Google, however, finds the direct copying an insult to their innovations which have propelled them to the top in the realm of search engines.
Although, Microsoft doesn’t view the practice as unethical, Google has serious complaints about their methods of increasing their viability as a search engine. The internet giant, Google will most likely stay at the top of the search engines and search engine optimization industries.
