This month, Google announced its new “Search, Plus Your World” strategy, in which Google search results would integrate information from a user’s social network—or, rather, from the company’s Google+ social network, as information from other social sites is not included in the new results format. Which prompted a terse, tweeted response from Alex Macgillivray, the general counsel of Twitter:
Bad day for the Internet. . . Having been there, I can imagine the dissension @Google to search being warped this way.
In a subsequent tweet, the Twitter GC provided a concrete example of his concern, saying “Here’s what a user searching for ‘@wwe’ will be shown on the new @Google,” and linking to a screen capture of Google search results for information on World Wrestling Entertainment.
Writing about the Google+ integration for the company’s official blog, Google Fellow Amit Singhal says “Search is still limited to a universe of webpages created publicly, mostly by people you’ve never met,” and suggests that “clearly, that isn’t enough. You should also be able to find your own stuff on the web, the people you know and things they’ve shared with you, as well as the people you don’t know but might want to. . . all from one search box.”
The exchange between Twitter and Google quickly escalated, with dueling statements that each attempted to paint the other party as being unreasonable. Twitter released a statement saying, “We’re concerned that as a result of Google’s changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone. We think that’s bad for people, publishers, news organizations and Twitter users.” A post on Google’s own Google+ page said, “We are a bit surprised by Twitter’s comments about Search plus Your World, because they chose not to renew their agreement with us last summer
Macgillivray, a former Google employee, is not the only one looking askance at Google’s move to mix its search results with its in-house social network. On Thursday, privacy watchdog group the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) sent a letter [PDF] to the Federal Trade Commission saying that, in light of the fact that the FTC “is currently investigating Google for possible antitrust violations. . . focusing on whether Google’s search practices give preference to its own content over non-Google content,” EPIC suggests that the commission include the recent addition of Google+ to search results into its investigation.
EPIC also questions whether the “Search, Plus Your World” move violates an earlier privacy settlement between the FTC and Google over its previous social network, Buzz.
As controversy over Google’s latest move to promote its nascent Google+ service continues to spread through official and unofficial quarters, Macgillivray is avoiding a lengthy “Twitter fight” on the topic. As of Friday morning, the GC was using his Twitter feed to address more lightweight news: “Listening to a lot of Crazy Horse these days.”
