This week, the world of Big Tech served up a fresh helping of hypocrisy, with Google taking the spotlight for calling out Microsoft’s “long history of tricks to confuse users and limit choice.” Oh, the irony—this finger-wagging comes less than three weeks after Google itself was accused of stomping all over user choice with its new plan to digitally fingerprint devices. Yes, Google’s sneaky little tracking scheme isn’t limited to just Android and Chrome anymore—it’s coming for all devices, and it’s only six weeks away.
Two headlines, a fortnight apart, but really, they’re two sides of the same coin. The unifying theme? Users being treated like pawns in a colossal game of corporate chess, played by tech giants who couldn’t care less about the people caught in the middle.
Google’s outrage over Microsoft stems from the revelation that Bing was caught “spoofing” the Google homepage to trick users into thinking they were still on Google when searching via Bing. Microsoft’s ploy was branded by Windows Latest as “a genius move to keep you from Google search.” Genius? Hardly. More like a blatant attempt to pull the wool over users’ eyes, all while these companies duke it out for the almighty prize of online search dominance.
Microsoft’s stunt included mimicking Google’s homepage, complete with a fake Google search bar, a doodle-like image, and some text under the bar—just enough to make you think you’d somehow landed back in familiar Google territory. And to top it off, they even scrolled the page slightly to hide Bing’s actual search bar. Classy.
Meanwhile, Google’s own privacy dumpster fire keeps burning. Just before the holidays, Google rolled out an update to its ad ecosystem that essentially said, “Let’s track everyone, everywhere.” Their excuse? Ads now appear on a “broader range of surfaces,” like connected TVs and gaming consoles. So, naturally, they decided to loosen restrictions on how their partners target and measure ads. Translation: Goodbye cookies, hello fingerprinting.
Fingerprinting isn’t just about browsers anymore. Now it’s a cross-device free-for-all, with Google happily collecting bits of device info to uniquely identify users—exactly the kind of invasive behavior regulators, like the UK’s ICO, have called out as unfair and controlling. Google’s move effectively replaces third-party cookies with something even creepier, giving users even less control over how their data is hoarded.
So, here we are: Google accusing Microsoft of shady tricks while it quietly doubles down on its own. If there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s that when Big Tech plays, we lose.
