I'm quite stunned that Google allowed this story to break.
It's such a bold claim, and with such an obvious explanation - Bing use all kinds of click data, whether from Google or not. Did they really not realise that was what was happening, or did they think "this is a certain PR win". Or do they just not have control of what their people say in public?
It's like if MS had discovered googlebombing and used it to 'show' that Google were 'copying' from webpages, or worse assumed that Google were manipulating search results.
I think Harry was exactly correct to describe this as a new kind of click fraud, and Google's handling of their discovery of it just amazes me.
It does look like Google thinks this is a PR win. With their comments in the search engine forum and Matt Cuttis' comments in the original HN thread, it is hard believe that this is a "rogue" faction of some sort.
It's such a bold claim, and with such an obvious explanation - Bing use all kinds of click data, whether from Google or not. Did they really not realise that was what was happening, or did they think "this is a certain PR win". Or do they just not have control of what their people say in public?
It's like if MS had discovered googlebombing and used it to 'show' that Google were 'copying' from webpages, or worse assumed that Google were manipulating search results.
I think Harry was exactly correct to describe this as a new kind of click fraud, and Google's handling of their discovery of it just amazes me.