FTC To Probe Google+ In Antitrust Investigation: REPORT

Another of Google's many web properties may come under scrutiny in an ongoing antitrust investigation by U.S. regulators.

According to Bloomberg, a Federal Trade Commission probe into Google's business practices will expand to include burgeoning social network Google+. The news comes days after Google announced that its search engine would include public data from Google+ in search results.

Though Bloomberg cited people familiar with the investigation, neither an FTC spokeswoman nor a Google rep would comment.

The FTC currently is looking into allegations that Google, the largest search engine by market share in the U.S., favors its own products in search results. As a result of a settlement reached with Google in March 2011, the FTC is also authorized to order third-party audits of Google's privacy practices once every two years for the next 20 years.

On December 10, Google announced a new search feature, "Search Plus Your World," which allows the search engine to pull data from users' connections in Google+ to make searching the web an increasingly personalized experience. By December 12, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) had filed a letter of complaint with the FTC raising concerns about the new feature's effect on competing web services. EPIC also stated in its letter that the FTC should look into the implications "Search Plus Your World" could have on users' privacy.

Citing Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land, EPIC's letter reads in part, "[A]lthough the data from a user's Google+ contacts is not displayed publicly, Google's changes make the personal data of users more accessible. Users might, for example, 'com[e] across an unexpected photo or post from a friend, [and] might reshare it to the world' or '[t]hings that people may have forgotten sharing with others will begin to show up serendipitously through ordinary Google searches.'"

Sullivan took "Search Plus Your World" to task in in interview with the AP, following the new feature's launch. In his opinion, the feature is ""exactly the kind of thing that the antitrust people are screaming about." The AP went on to quote Sullivan thus: "This is very un-Google like. It's unfair to other services and it's unfair to people."

Huffington Post blogger Marvin Ammori details the changes that "Search Plus Your World" will introduce to web search:

It has three main tweaks. First, search will display, in your results, photos and post from Google+ where relevant, but only those posts in your own account and those shared with you. Other people will not see these results; they're personalized. Second, Google+ profiles will show up in search and in Google's usual autocomplete function. Third, Google will suggest relevant profiles and pages on Google+; if you search for music, you might see Sufjan Stevens' profile.

Twitter has also voiced its dissent against the new feature, calling it "bad" for people who use the web for both personal and commercial purposes. "As we’ve seen time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter; as a result, Twitter accounts and Tweets are often the most relevant results. We’re concerned that as a result of Google’s changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone," the company said in a statement emailed to journalists. Google, however was quick to point out that Twitter had ended a partnership with the search engine that had given users the option to use Google as a tool to comb through real-time Twitter data.

Google confirmed in June 2011 that the FTC was looking into whether the search engine was engaging in anticompetitive practices.

"It's still unclear exactly what the FTC's concerns are," Google engineer Amit Singhal, wrote at the time. Danny Sullivan, who shared his opinion of the investigation with the AP, took a similar view. "From what I have seen so far," he told the AP, "Google doesn't seem to be doing anything wrong."

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt defended the company before an antitrust panel of the Senate Judiciary Committee in September. In December, Senators Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), who serve on the antitrust subcommittee as chairman and ranking member respectively, sent a followup letter to the FTC expressing concerns about Google that "merit serious scrutiny by the FTC."

Also on HuffPost:

Comments

[jsarets]

01:57 AM on 01/15/2012

When Google was coming of age, the web was largely a universal namespace: anyone could request a given URL and get the same resource. Google would crawl this universal namespace and index the resources so that they could be requested by query rather than by name.

In the past several years, the web has become increasingly account-driven. The resourced returned from a request on a given URL very often depends on the user issuing the request.

This breaks Google's model of the web. Search engines like Google and Bing can't index large portions of the modern web, because the resources are only relevant in the context of a particular user account. Every user's view of the web is different. There is no universal namespace.

In other to make sense of the account-oriented web, Google needs access to those accounts. In their Social Circles feature, they ask Google users to volunteer their usernames and passwords on various other web applications including Facebook. This allows Google to index your Facebook account for Google search queries if you hand over your Facebook login credentials.

But obviously, Google can do a better job of indexing a Google+ account than they can at indexing a Facebook account, because they understand the internals of their own application and most likely designed it to build its own search index driven by the semantics inherent to the application.

The web, originally intended as a platform for public information, is increasingly good at privacy. But what good is a search engine if it can't search your private view of the web? This is one of the major issues facing the web going forward. The only way to make sense of the web is to own the accounts, a situation which benefits the largest web platforms and creates barriers to new competition.

As the web matures there will likely be room for only two dominant web platforms (and perhaps a notable but smaller third platform) which have their own account bases and their own means of searching or otherwise discovering resources on those separate platforms.

Users want privacy. In exchange, we'll get walled gardens. That's just the way it is.

[bigshotprof]

08:59 PM on 01/14/2012

If they do they will be the only ones who are still there.

[afnfan]

08:31 PM on 01/14/2012

Is it only me, or does anyone read the privacy policy and the terms of service before signing up or continuing to use a website?

It’s one thing that you do not upload any personal information and someone else does that without your consent, but you failed to read the privacy policy and the terms of service and you latter find out that your information has been used, than you don’t anyone one else to blame other than yourself because you agreed and you should have done that before. Also go back and reread them so see if they have been changed in anyway.

If you are not purchasing something on off of websites like eBay, jcpenney.com, Amazon.com, ect you are not required to put personal information.

[The-Messiah]

05:00 PM on 01/14/2012

The FTC is now a fully functioning arm of facebook.

[Stewart Goss]

04:53 PM on 01/14/2012

Behind every anti-trust suit is a lobbyist for a company that doesn't want to compete in the free market.

Looks like Mark Zuckerberg is getting payback for supporting Obama.

I also find it amazing that Google isn't allowed to filter searches to favor their web sites. There are other search engines. Also, if you don't like them...you can build your own, even a non-programmer can do it easily in 20 minutes.

[Teri L]

03:36 PM on 01/14/2012

The government is one to talk about violating privacy considering the fact that they demanded that Google handle over Google user data. Google refused the governments demand. So, who is really violating our privacy here? The government will get those records the old fashioned way--file suit and open discovery.

[Sock De Jour]

05:25 AM on 01/15/2012

Google pretended to not hand it over. In reality, they did, through the NSA joint venture.

[Alan W. Silberberg]

03:19 PM on 01/14/2012

While there may be cause for concern about privacy issues, Google is a company not the government and sets policies just like other corporations do. How they adjust their own products internally may very well set off anti-trust concerns - but they also create benefits for people willing to embrace the changes. SEO marketers are crying out because this forces them to reshape their business model. People who have been linkbaiting and otherwise gaming search now have new levels to try to game, so at least some of the criticism is coming from those corners.

[Dennis]

12:36 PM on 01/15/2012

Most SEO marketers are just about as effective as the people who promise to clean up your credit history. Since the end of its first year on the Web, Google has become an increasingly tough nut to crack for SEO types and the last thing they want is another algorithmic barrier to their efforts . 

As you observed, the people who most likely brought this to the attention of the FTC are those who prefer to try and game the system so that their results pop up first. 

F&F

[Me Simple Caveman]

01:34 PM on 01/14/2012

It very important that Og know what friend Tog had for eat lunch yesterday. No need to search for "information".
Og so glad Neanderthal not rule world like Hom-saps. We not wise enough to know what important like you geniuses.

[flashfyre]

12:32 PM on 01/14/2012

The Microsoft antitrust trial of the early 2000's had an amazing effect. Every PC is still delivered with Windows.

There is absolutely no limit to what the fine governments of the United States and Europe cannot do with their anti-trust investigations.

[Stewart Goss]

04:55 PM on 01/14/2012

Why did we need an anti-trust action against Microsoft? Was the market closed to competition by force? I seem to remember Apple, Ubundu and a host of other operating systems so since when did Microsoft NOT have competition?

The Post Office has a monopoly on delivering letters, where is the anti-trust action here?

[flashfyre]

11:27 PM on 01/14/2012

Been to a retail store lately? Nearly everything is Microsoft. To deny their near 100% control in the PC market, and rapid expansion into Cloud, Search, and Tablets is amazing.

[D-V-H]

11:32 PM on 01/14/2012

You have never heard of a vertical monopoly? Oh, and what is it that Fedex, UPS, DHL and many others do?

[Robb White]

11:52 AM on 01/14/2012

The only thing google + is guilty of is being boring

[MissTake1989]

06:47 AM on 01/14/2012

How can you have a monopoly on something when there are 100's of alternatives a click away?

[Stewart Goss]

04:56 PM on 01/14/2012

Don't go there, attempt to understand the liberal mindset and you'll be locked up on the funny farm.

[Cynth]

11:16 PM on 01/13/2012

Are we going to see Google punish itself again? I did get a kick out of that.

[Gerald Sheffield]

11:06 PM on 01/13/2012

C'mon Google!

[cb3cb3]

11:00 PM on 01/13/2012

We MUST keep the government out of the internet as much as possible. no SOPA, no FTC

[Stewart Goss]

04:57 PM on 01/14/2012

Thankfully liberals seem to get this. It is no coincidence that the internet was a success beyond anyone's dreams because it was unregulated.

[JVene]

07:26 PM on 01/13/2012

It's creepy and it's spooky,
occasionally it's kooky,
the bureau thinks it's ooky,
investigate and see.