Google Accuses Microsoft's Bing of 'Cheating'

Google Inc. accused rival Microsoft Corp. of copying its Internet search results, the latest salvo in the ongoing rivalry between the two technology behemoths.

Google made the claim Tuesday after releasing the results of a test it carried out purporting to show how Google's results for search terms were copied weeks later by Microsoft's Bing search engine. Amit Singhal, who helps oversee Google's search engine algorithm, called Bing's behavior "cheating."

In response, Harry Shum, a Microsoft corporate vice president, wrote in a blog post that Google's claims were misleading and amounted to a "spy-novelesque stunt to generate extreme outliers." But Mr. Shum and another Microsoft executive stopped short of denying Google's claim.

The verbal volleys are the latest in the ongoing rivalry between Microsoft and Google, which for years have battled on multiple fronts including online advertising and Web browsing, among other things. Google soon will also introduce to the market laptops and other devices running on the Chrome operating system, a direct attack on Microsoft's longstanding Windows franchise.

:story: Full story: WSJ