You’re right, in the strictest IT-nerd sense, that when Bing singles out the “google” search query for special treatment, that one step doesn’t involve “intercepting” anything.
But the Bing/Microsoft people are doing that to trick users who had intended to search Google into searching Bing instead. When it works, that’s Bing intercepting the user’s Google search, using social engineering rather than tech hacks.
If anything, that’s just an indicator of Google’s market dominance. Microsoft’s actions are ethically dubious, but more countries need to adopt legislation in the style of the EU’s Digital Services Act to promote competition to prevent consumers from assuming that Google is the sole means of searching online.
You’re right, in the strictest IT-nerd sense, that when Bing singles out the “google” search query for special treatment, that one step doesn’t involve “intercepting” anything.
But the Bing/Microsoft people are doing that to trick users who had intended to search Google into searching Bing instead. When it works, that’s Bing intercepting the user’s Google search, using social engineering rather than tech hacks.
If anything, that’s just an indicator of Google’s market dominance. Microsoft’s actions are ethically dubious, but more countries need to adopt legislation in the style of the EU’s Digital Services Act to promote competition to prevent consumers from assuming that Google is the sole means of searching online.