Scroogled. Is it mere coincidence Microsoft’s new campaign against rival search giant Google—creatively combining the words screwed and Google—closely resembles the name of Ebenezer from Dickens’ classic, “The Christmas Carol?” Likely not. In an effort to drive more traffic to its Bing search engine, Microsoft claims in what can only be described as pure greed, Google has turned its shopping search results into a “purely commercial model that delivers listings ranked by bid price.

“Google Shopping is nothing more than a list of targeted ads that unsuspecting customers assume are search results,” the Bing team said on its campaign Web site, Scroogled.com. “We say that when you limit choices and rank them by payment, customers get Scroogled.”

The Bing team even went so far as to list definitions for its new word. Microsoft defines “Scroogled” as the “practice of selling their shopping search results to a high bidder; known to produce intense anger in online shoppers who might miss out on the best price or the highest quality items.”

Microsoft’s statements carry quite a bit of truth. Although Google doesn’t ask for payment to list sites in its main Web searches, if a user clicks on the shopping tab, the results will only list paying merchants. Therefore, even some of the largest retailers, such as Amazon.com, will not display in the search results unless they pay. Google issued a statement yesterday saying it is pleased with the merchant response to its new shopping system, which now lists more than 100,000 sellers. Only 100,000 or all the merchants in the world, though? Plus, merchants that pay more get a higher ranking. Google defends the practice, stating the shopping listings are clearly labeled “sponsored.”

“We believe that having a commercial relationship with merchants will encourage them to keep their product information fresh and up to date,” Sameer Samat, Google’s vice president of product management, said in a blog post. “Higher quality data—whether it’s accurate prices, the latest offers or product availability—should mean better shopping results for users, which in turn should create higher quality traffic for merchants.”

Microsoft claims the practice, which was first announced in May, is misleading to users and corrupts the art of the search algorithm.

“In short, we think that too many shoppers who use Google for their shopping searches are getting ‘Scroogled’ when they should be getting fair, honest, open search,” the Bing team wrote in a blog post. “It’s like Ebenezer Scrooge met Google Shopping. We think consumers should be aware what they’re seeing when they’re shopping online and to understand, without any hidden text or traps, the fine print of what their ‘search engine’ actually searches.”

Of course Microsoft believes users will get a better search experience from Bing. In fact, it launched a “Bing It On” campaign in September that allows Web users to enter a search and view side-by-side comparisons of Bing and Google search results.

“Our mission is to show people it’s time to break the ‘Google habit’ and that Bing has reached a quality level that will make it easy to switch,” Microsoft said in September, adding recently, “For an honest search result, try Bing.”

Microsoft’s campaigns are slowly but surely paying off. Google currently boasts 66.9 percent of the U.S. search market, but Bing now claims 16 percent, up from 15.9 percent a month ago. It ranks second among all search engines, ahead of Yahoo, Ask.com and AOL.

“We want consumers to know in contrast to route that Google has pursued, we are staying true to the DNA of what a good search engine is really about,” Mike Nichols, Bing’s chief marketing officer, told Fox News. “We will rank results on what’s relevant to you and not based on how much someone might pay us.”