Google fires back as Microsoft is accused of 'tricking' people into using Bing

The gloves are off (again) in the search engine wars

· TechRadar

News By Darren AllanContributions from Matt Hanson published 7 January 2025

(Image credit: Shutterstock / Monticello)
  • Microsoft has been accused of using an underhand trick to drive Bing traffic
  • In certain situations, searching for ‘Google’ in Bing will produce a results page that looks a lot like Google's home page
  • Critics argue this might lead to people searching via Bing rather than Google without knowing

Microsoft’s been accused of using underhand tricks that push the use of the Bing search engine at the expense of Google – and the outcry has prompted a senior Google employee to speak out.

According to Windows Latest, people who searched for Google using either Edge or Chrome web browsers with Bing set as their default search engine would get a results page that looked a lot like Google's home page, rather than the usual Bing results page.

When Bing returns the search results, Microsoft has apparently made a change so that the Bing search bar – normally found at the top of the list of results – has had an image added to it, rather like a Google doodle.

This has led to some on the internet accusing Microsoft of making it look like the Google home page has loaded, and even suggesting that the web page is loaded in such a way that the ‘Microsoft Bing’ logo and bar at the very top are hidden away.

This could make users go ahead and run a search, using the Bing bar, while thinking they are using Google.

The backlash has been swift and vocal, with even a senior employee at Google weighing in.

This is a major intervention – and a surprising one at that. Parisa Tabriz is VP of Chrome at Google, and she's making some bold accusations, even going as far as to tag Microsoft. We don't often see such senior employees getting involved in accusations that (as far as we can tell) are far from substantiated.

Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox

Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more.

Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors