FTC probe of Google to include company's new search

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The Federal Trade Commission is reportedly expanding its antitrust probe of Google to include the company's new Search, plus your world social search feature, an effort to make users' results more personal.
Bloomberg and Reuters both said Jan. 13 the FTC is looking into the matter because it is concerned Google is providing preference to Google+ over Web services from others, breaking its promise to provide unbiased search results.
Search plus your world injects posts and pictures from users' Google+ accounts into their search results. It also makes users' Google+ contacts and relevant Google+ Pages more readily searchable.
However, the service eschews such content from Facebook and Twitter, two of the world's leading social services that users have come to expect content from on search engines. Google's failure to treat third-party sources equal to Google+ in search results drew complaints from media, Twitter and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).
EPIC Jan. 12 complained to the FTC that Google is skewering user privacy and antitrust rules just to keep up with Facebook.
The FTC appears to be listening to the Internet's concerns, which echo complaints brought to bear by senators who complained that Google was ranking its own products higher than those of Yelp, Expedia and others in its search results.

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