Google has suddenly hit back hard after Microsoft was seemingly caught capturing and diverting Google users within its Windows ecosystem. “New year, new low,” one Google exec posted on X, accusing the Windows-maker of “a long history of tricks to confuse users and limit choice.”
Last month, Microsoft was called out for its latest round of nags to push Chrome users to switch to Edge, setting it as their default browser. “Microsoft Edge won’t stop nagging users to set itself as default on Windows 11,” Windows Latest reported.
Windows Latest is also responsible for this latest furor, with “a pretty interesting yet controversial change that spoofs Google.com UI when you try to find Google when using Bing.com. This is a genius move to keep you from Google search, which has become a synonym for search engines or finding answers online.”
The Verge criticized this as “a clear attempt from Microsoft to make Bing look like Google for this specific search query, and other searches just list the usual Bing search results without this special interface. The Google result includes a search bar, an image that looks a lot like a Google Doodle, and even some small text under the search bar just like Google does. Microsoft even automatically scrolls down the page slightly to mask its own Bing search bar that appears at the top of search results.”
And it was in response to The Verge article that Google Chrome boss Parisa Tabriz posted that while “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Microsoft spoofing the Google homepage is another tactic in its long history of tricks to confuse users and limit choice.” This, she said, is a “New year; new low @Microsoft.”
Windows Latest explains that “if you open Bing.com and search for Google or Google.com, you’ll now see a giant animated picture of people celebrating, along with a message. Bing’s design looks a lot like Google’s when you search for Google on Bing. The page has a clean layout, a search bar in the middle, and simple illustrations. This, it says, “is a somewhat sneaky way to reduce the bounce rate.”
Although it controls the world’s dominant desktop OS, Microsoft has not yet dented Google’s dominance in browser and search technologies, albeit it has been accused before of leveraging its captive Windows audience to push its other brands.
Google has been accused of much the same, of course, leveraging its own dominant platforms to capture users within its ecosystem. It seems the spat will run and run. I have approached Microsoft and Google for any comments on this latest twist.
