Dude, I've seen your comments on this thread. Several of them are basically asking people to confirm facts everybody agrees on. You should come better prepared for the next discussion.
Sorry to be an ass. But you're wasting my time on this site, since I have to wade through your questions to get to the interesting ones.
There's something most of HN are missing. You are indeed being rude by not letting me point it out:
* Google having the Bing toolbar installed and entering the search into Bing toolbar is one thing (and I'd expect MS to be using the data)
* Google having the Bing tolbar installed and entering the search into the Google hom page is a very different thing (and I'd expect MS to be using the data)
Judging from the moderation in this thread, people seem to think the first happened.
According to Google, it did not. No other source contravenes this.
Sorry if you think me pointing this out is bad. Perhaps your efforts would be better reporting all the non-hacker stories on the front page?
Sorry to be an ass. But you're wasting my time on this site, since I have to wade through your questions to get to the interesting ones.