Microsoft says Google used click fraud to study Bing

Now Microsoft accuses Google of using a criminal tool to conduct its Bing Sting operation that the search engine giant revealed earlier this week. Google used click fraud usually practiced by cyber crooks.

On Tuesday this week Google started roaring over the Internet and tech press that in the course of its sting investigation they found evidence that Bing is intentially and systematically copying Google search results.

Meantime, Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president for Microsoft's Online Services Division, fired back. He said that Google's sting, in fact, was "rigged to manipulate Bing search results" through the use of click fraud -- the elaborate trickery scammers use to fake clicks on Web ads in order to get paid by advertisers.

"What does all this cloak and dagger click fraud prove?" asks Mehdi. "Nothing anyone in the industry doesn't already know."