[governance] Fwd:

Wed Jan 11 16:03:06 EST 2012

Dear all,

Yesterday’s article in Huffington Post ‘Google 'Search Plus Your World'
 Brings Google+ Into Search Results’  is for your information.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/10/google-search-plus-your-world_n_1196565.html

SAN FRANCISCO -- Google is sifting through the photos and commentary on its
blossoming social network so its Internet search results can include more
personal information.

The additional personal touches that began to roll out Tuesday mark another
step toward one of Google's most ambitious goals. The Internet search
leader eventually hopes to know enough about each of its users so it can
tailor its results to fit the unique interests of each person looking for
something.

Different people should start seeing different search results more
frequently now that Google Inc. is importing content from its 6-month-old
Plus service, a product that the company introduced in an attempt to
counter the popularity of Facebook's online hangout and Twitter's
short-messaging hub. Google's main search results page also will start
highlighting more content from an older online photo service called Picasa.

Other features will recommend additional people and companies to follow on
Plus, based on their search requests. Those suggestions will exclude
publicly accessible information about accounts on Facebook and Twitter.

The preferential treatment for Plus might amplify concerns about the
objectivity of Google's search results _a focal point of broad regulatory
investigations in the U.S. and Europe.

The Federal Trade Commission, attorneys general in six states, and the
European Commission are looking into complaints alleging Google has been
unfairly exploiting its dominance in Internet search to promote its other
services while ignoring or downplaying pertinent information about its
rivals.

The exclusive Plus recommendations in Google's search results are "exactly
the kind of thing that the antitrust people are screaming about," said
Danny Sullivan, an industry expert who has been following Google since the
1990s and is now editor of SearchEngineLand.com. "This is very un-Google
like. It's unfair to other services and it's unfair to people."

Sullivan's criticism is especially striking because he has generally
defended other search features that highlight Google's own services.

Twitter said it's worried the added emphasis on Plus in Google's search
results will make it more difficult to find breaking news and other
compelling information shared within the 250 million messages, or tweets,
posted on its service each day.

"We think that's bad for people, publishers, news organizations and Twitter
users," Twitter said in a statement.

Facebook didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Google says its efforts to reel in more information from other sharing
services are frequently thwarted by the providers. For instance, Twitter
puts explicit instructions in its computer computing telling Google not to
index the material, according to Google.

"Ushering in the new era of social and private data search will take close
cooperation, and we hope other sites participate so we can provide the best
possible experience for our users," Google said in a statement issued after
it was asked about its added emphasis on Plus in its search results.

Facebook and Twitter pose a threat to Google because they don't allow
Google's search engine to log most of the photos, links and observations
cascading through those services. That's troublesome to Google because its
search engine could become less useful if its system can't analyze what
people are signaling is important to them so those preferences can be
factored into the results.

Twitter once gave Google better access to the tweets flowing through its
service as part of a 2009 licensing agreement, but that deal expired last
summer. Microsoft Corp.'s Bing search engine is still paying to mine into
Twitter's service.

Facebook has long cooperated with Bing, partly because Microsoft bought a
1.6 percent stake in the company in 2007. At the same time, Facebook has
steadfastly resisted Google's attempts to peer deeper into its social
network.

That's one of the reasons Google started Plus, which is now hatching
"Search, plus Your World."

The feature will be automatically turned on for all English-language
searches made by users logged into Google. Turning off the personal results
permanently will require changing a setting in Google's personal
preferences. The personal results can also be excluded on a
search-by-search basis by clicking on an icon of the globe on the results
page (the personal results will be denoted by a button featuring a human's
silhouette).

If the new formula works as Google expects, the search results will include
pertinent information culled from the requestor's Plus account. For
instance, a query about the San Francisco 49ers might include links and
comments made about the football team by other people in one of the social
circles on the user's Plus account. A search request that includes the name
of a dog owned by the user or a friend might turn up photos of the pet that
have been posted on Plus and Picasa.

"This is going to open up a whole new avenue in search," said Ben Gomes, a
Google fellow.

Google isn't the first to do this. Bing has been mining some of the
preferences and other information shared on Facebook since May. But
Google's emphasis on more personal results figures to attract more
attention because its search engine is so dominant. It handles about
two-thirds of the Internet search requests made in the U.S. while Bing
processes less than one-third, including the activity that it comes through
a partnership with Yahoo Inc.

Facebook, though, has greater insights into personal tastes. That's because
its nearly 8-year-old social network boasts more than 800 million users who
share more than 1.5 billion photos alone each week. In October, Google said
Plus had more than 40 million users. Google hasn't updated the information
since then, although some external studies have estimated Plus began the
new year with 60 million to 70 million users.

The search changes Some of Google's changes may help prod more people into
joining Plus.

As part of Tuesday's expansion, the profile pictures of Plus accountholders
will appear in the drop-down suggestions on Google's search box. So when
typing in "Mary," you may see those named Mary in your circle along with
those Google believes you'd find interesting.

Searches on general topics such as "music" and "sports," will generate
suggestions on people and companies that have Plus accounts. Sullivan
considers this be unfair because some people might not have Plus accounts,
or share more interesting information on their Twitter page.

While Google is hoping the addition of more personal results will make its
search engine even more useful, the changes also could spook some people as
they realize how much information is being compiled about them. Google
tried to minimize privacy concerns by recently switching to technology that
encrypts all its search results to protect the information from slipping
out.

Previous privacy missteps by both Google and Facebook resulted in both
companies entering into settlements with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.
The FTC agreements require Google and Facebook to submit to external audits
of their privacy practices every other year.

Nariné Khachatryan
Media Education Center
Yerevan, Armenia
http://www.immasin.am  <http://www.immasin.am>
http://www.safe.am/
http://www.mediaeducation.am/
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