Microsoft Fights Back at Yale Professor, Says Bing Really Is Better than Google

Microsoft has rolled out a lengthy blog post to issue a public response to a recent study which was showing that the company actually lied in its Bing It On challenge and, in reality, users pick Google over Bing.

Redmond takes Ayres’ statements one by one and claims that his report is rather inaccurate because it includes several false comments regarding Microsoft’s method used to determine which search engine is better.

First of all, Ayres claimed that Microsoft had a sample of only 1,000 people, which in his opinion is not enough to evaluate the performance of a web-based service.

The tech giant notes that Ayres himself used the same sample during his own researches, which is actually living proof that Microsoft’s own method is not at all inaccurate.

“A sample of 1,000 people doing the same task has more statistical power than a sample of 300 people doing the same task. Which is why statistics are so important; they help us understand whether the data we see is an aberration or a representation. A 1,000 person, truly representative sample is actually fairly large,” Matt Wallaert, behavioral psychologist, Bing, said.

Then, Wallaert pointed to Ayres statement that says that Microsoft is trying to keep all states regarding the Bing It On challenge secret, without revealing how many people actually choose Bing over Google

“The answer here is pretty simple: we don't release it because we don't track it. Microsoft takes a pretty strong stance on privacy and unlike in an experiment, where people give informed consent to having their results tracked and used, people who come to BingItOn.com are not agreeing to participate in research; they're coming for a fun challenge,” the Microsoft employee stated.

Last but not least, Wallaert explains that the suggested queries posted on the Bing It On site are based on trending now topics on Bing.

“We have the suggested queries because a blank search box, when you're not actually trying to use it to find something, can be quite hard to fill. If you've ever watched anyone do the Bing It On challenge at a Seahawks game, there is a noted pause as people try to figure out what to search for.”