Every day, it feels like we're hitting new levels of cultural division—with government officials taking to platforms to dunk, for some reason, and a rising tide of verbal slapfighting to which even your humble search engines are not immune. Google has fired a verbal shot over the information highway, as per a recent post to X by the company's vice president and general manager of Chrome, Parisa Tabriz.
"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but Microsoft spoofing the Google homepage is another tactic in its long history of tricks to confuse users & limit choice," Tabriz writes. "New year; new low, Microsoft." This dunk is in response to a recent, and certainly underhanded, trick by Microsoft to redirect you to a faux-Google webpage if you search for "Google" on Bing, a sort of eerie facsimile of Google's layout, complete with Google-esque clipart.
I just tested it now, and it's still happening, although the "Microsoft Bing" cookies request at the bottom does somewhat ruin the kayfabe. As our own Joshua Wolens described it, "I'd bet a billion it'd hoodwink your less tech-literate family members and friends. You know, the kind of people who might find themselves doing a Bing search for 'Google'."
As for that "long history of tricks", Tabriz isn't entirely wrong. Just last year, PC Gamer's own Rich Stanton was blindsided when the sheer audacity of a pop-up advertising Bing during his browsing that made him think he had some sketchy malware installed. Then there's the Bing wallpaper app, which was allegedly doing the same, along with the recommended settings automatically swapping your default engine for its unused self. I'm sort of desensitised to it now, and I only use the search bar for files anyway, but in 2022 Microsoft made it your desktop's default engine, too. The Verge, whose article on the subject Tabriz is quoting, actually has an updated list of all the times Microsoft's tried to sneak it past you.
The funny thing is, Tabriz isn't even the only Google employee taking pot-shots at this thing. Product manager Jeffrey Jose writes "shameful" in a similar post, while product strategy manager Apran Das adds: "Nice jugaad", presumably sarcastically, given he's reposted Tabriz's statement (a jugaad is a word that describes a sort of patchwork or roundabout solution to a problem).
I mean, listen. I'm about as nervous about Google's techno-monopoly as any person with a passing knowledge of science fiction. The company has even been ordered to sell the very web browser in question after a judge ruled that it had acted illegally in order to maintain its iron grip on the market. But from a consumer perspective, you can't just 'here comes the aeroplane!' a search engine, Bing. We're grown adults. I only eat my broccoli if it's a spaceship, like any self-respecting member of society.
I've reached out to Microsoft to see if it'd like to explain this particular rugpull. I'll update this article if I receive a response. In the meantime, I'll just have to live with the fact that we live in a society just a few steps away from Google and Microsoft meeting in a parking lot to dance battle with each other.
