What I see is that Bing filtered out 93/100 of the deliberately planted seeds, and what I don't see is how many times Google sent each seed packet to Microsoft. If Google sent each packet through the Bing tool bar once, it is different than if they sent each one through 1000 times. [edit] In that case what Google did was exploit a feature of Bing toolbar in a manner somewhat akin to an injection attack. It is also not evident what Google tried that didn't work.[/edit]
Finally, what I find interesting is that Google basically broke what they claim to be their prime directive - not hard coding search rankings - for PR purposes. There isn't a good story behind that either way. Either approval came from the top, in which case senior management broke the directive to embarrass a competitor or it was broken by cowboys outside of management control. Of course it is also possible that this sort of thing is done regularly within the course of business.
[Aside] I want to be the first to dub this "Binggate."
"broke what they claim to be their prime directive - not hard coding search rankings"
If you consider setting up a honeypot on a term with no hits to really be going against the "not hard coding search rankings" in any meaningful way, you are most likely some sort of obscure Bing ultra-partisan.
Let's be clear, Google hard coded search results for PR purposes and generated the PR with a 20 engineer black hat operation specifically intended to inject the honeypots into Bing's results. It was not a clever little hack. It was a multi-man year industrial espionage operation utilizing some of the best talent in the industry for the sake of a PR win.
The fact that Google's operation only succeeded with 7 out of 100 honeypots is telling evidence that Microsoft is explicitly trying not to do what Google is accusing it of doing given the scale of Google's operation.
This has nothing to do with Bing. Google's Prime Directive is their promise and no one else's. The fundamental nature of a promise is that it breaking it is not excused by "the ends justify the means."
However, some people may consider a promise to be breakable under extraordinary circumstances. I won't disagree that such a belief can be considered reasonable. But the circumstances under which Google violated their Prime Directive are hardly extraordinary - dragging Microsoft through the mud at a search conference
Finally, what I find interesting is that Google basically broke what they claim to be their prime directive - not hard coding search rankings - for PR purposes. There isn't a good story behind that either way. Either approval came from the top, in which case senior management broke the directive to embarrass a competitor or it was broken by cowboys outside of management control. Of course it is also possible that this sort of thing is done regularly within the course of business.
[Aside] I want to be the first to dub this "Binggate."