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Google says it caught Microsoft copying its search results and incorporating them into its own Bing service.

Short version: Google suspected that Microsoft was recording what Internet Explorer users typed into the Google search box and which search result they were clicking — and then using that information to adjust Bing’s results. To test this theory, Google engineers set up a sting operation.

Microsoft doesn’t deny its sleazy tactic; its bizarre defense is simply that the ripped-off Google results represent only one of many data points Bing considers.

Schools are safe havens where children should be able to learn and grow in a supportive atmosphere. At home, parents have the ability to monitor their children’s intake of consumer products by limiting television and internet usage, and helping them engage critically with the content they see. But if we allow advertising in any form in our schools, we run directly counter to the message educational institutions are trying to promote: that these are places of learning, not selling.

While much of the deluge was back-and-forth banter on tardiness, homework, or grade anxiety, Campbell also began using the constant communiqués as a means to engage students in learning. He began texting a daily journal topic every morning and encouraged students to think about it before they came to class. So far, it's been largely effective, perhaps as a result of the psychology that makes cell phones so addictive for teens in the first place.

"Everyone has a compulsion to read that text message when it bleeps, bings, chimes, or vibrates. No exceptions," Campbell has written of the program. "Sooner or later you have to open that text and read it. It's like captive-audience advertising, but for the good guys in education, rather than marketing."

how savvy

If they’re naive at Googling, it’s because the ability to judge information is almost never taught in school.

intelligent search a key to everyday problem-solving

binge and purge” learning: They stuffed themselves full of facts and then spewed them out at test time. Research in cognitive science shows that this is a very poor way to retain information,

spaced repetition works, increasing knowledge retention by up to 50 percent

a shift from its founding philosophy of “organizing the world’s information,” to one that is far more active in deciding how that information should appear.

Google keeps blacklists to remove certain sites or prevent others from surfacing in certain types of results. These moves are separate from those that block sites as required by U.S. or foreign law,

Far from being autonomous computer programs oblivious to outside pressure, Google’s algorithms are subject to regular tinkering from executives and engineers who are trying to deliver relevant search results, while also pleasing a wide variety of powerful interests and driving its parent company’s more than $30 billion in annual profit.