We always imagined that when Google and Microsoft finally decided to take one another on in a publicly fought battle, there would be robots and fire and lots of guns that went "pew, pew, pew".

But no, the two tech giants are fighting it out - playground-stylee. And not even stand around in a circle shouting "fight, fight, fight" as two lummoxes bash the crap out of each other playground-stylee. But, "Miss, he called me names" playground-stylee.

Basically, it's a public war of words that's all a bit tit-for-tat.

It all kicked off when Google launched operation "Bing Sting" - which sounds a lot more exciting than it really is.

Staff at the Mountain View were concerned that a number of random, irregular, search queries were showing the same results on Bing (via a toolbar on Internet Explorer) as per Google. So they laid some bait and waited for a Bing shaped monster to come along and take it.

And it did, apparently, and Google was quick to cry foul.

Microsoft hit back though, and accused Google of conducting "spy-novelesque stunts". 

Harry Shum, VP of Bing, said: "We do not copy Google's search results. We use multiple signals and approaches in ranking search results.

"Opt-in programs like the toolbar help us with clickstream data, one of many input signals we and other search engines use to help rank sites."

Google has since said that Microsoft's behaviour is "plain and simply cheating".

We did warn you it was all rather mundane didn't we?

The whole saga does raise an interesting query though. Why the heck, in 2011, is anyone still using Internet Explorer? That's the real mystery here people.