Google is not developing its own social-networking site to go head-to-head with Facebook, according to Reuters.

"We're not working on a social network platform that's just going to be another social network platform," Hugo Barra, Google's head of mobile product, said during the Monaco Media Forum. "We do think that social is an ingredient for success for any app going forward, search and advertising being probably the best two examples that I would mention. So that's how we're thinking about the problem."

Rumors were circulating over the summer that Google was building a social network called "Google Me" thanks to a tweet from Digg co-founder Kevin Rose and a blog post from former Facebook executive Adam D'Angelo. However, no Google-backed Facebook killer has been announced.

Google has flirted with the idea of social networking before, however. The company owns Orkut, a social network popular in Brazil and India. Google Buzz, a social-networking feature integrated into Gmail and several mobile products, was launched in February. Amid concern over how much personal information was being made public, Google tweaked Buzz several days after its debut, making it more clear how information was shared, and simplifying the process for blocking or following other users.

Some users, however, filed a Buzz-related class-action suit against Google in February. In September, Google announced an $8.5 million settlement, which – after attorneys' fees and expenses are covered – will be donated to Internet privacy and education organizations.

Google and Facebook haven't exactly "friended" one another, meanwhile. Last week, Google amended the Terms of Service in its Google Contacts API to effectively ban Facebook (as well as other Web sites) from automatically importing users' contacts on Gmail into the social-networking site.

According to Reuters, Google chief Eric Schmidt recently said that rather than build a full product, that Google will add "layers" of social networking to its services. During a September appearance at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference, Schmidt declined to address the "Google Me" rumors, but during an interview with Charlie Rose, he reiterated the "layers" concept.

Google is "building social information into all of our products," Schmidt told Rose. "So it won't be a social network the way people think of Facebook, but rather social information about who your friends are, people you interact with and we have various ways we'll be collecting that information."