Google's search update could earn the Internet giant another Federal Trade Commission (FTC) probe.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) on Thursday penned a letter to the FTC, asking the agency to investigate recent changes to Google Search. In particular, EPIC is concerned about Google's decision to include personal data pulled from Google+ in its results, such as photos, posts, and contact details.
"Google is changing the results displayed by its search engine to include data from its social network, such as photos or blog posts made by Google+ users, as well as the public Internet," EPIC wrote. "Although data from a user's Google+ contacts is not displayed publicly, Google's changes make the personal data of users more accessible. Users can opt out of seeing personalized search results, but cannot opt out of having their information found through Google search."
Google last week began to roll out its latest search initiative called Search plus Your World, which taps into its Google+ network to deliver personalized social results. However, critics claim that Google crossing the line by favoring its own network above competitors.
Google responded to the backlash in a statement emailed to PCMag.
"Our goal with search has always been to provide the most relevant results possible," Google spokesperson Gabriel Stricker said. "That's why for years we've been working on social search features to help you find the most relevant information from your social connections no matter what site it's on. With Search plus Your World, we're making it easier to find not only public content, but also content that's been shared specifically with you. To do this right we've taken special care with our new features to provide robust security protections, transparency and control for our users."
Twitter has also expressed concern over the search update, claiming that it will prevent people from turning to Twitter to find important, real-time information.
"For years, people have relied on Google to deliver the most relevant results anytime they wanted to find something on the Internet," Twitter said. "Often they want to know more about world events and breaking news. Twitter has emerged as a vital source of this real-time information, with more than 100 million users sending 250 million Tweets every day on virtually every topic. 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."
Google used to have a paid deal that allowed it to access information from Twitter in real time, but it expired in July and was not renewed, according to Search Engine Land. Absent that deal, Google is still able to use data from Twitter, it just has to use publically available resources to access it.
Alex Macgillivray, Twitter's general counsel, on Wednesday took to his Twitter feed to offer an example of how Search plus Your World affects results. He entered a query for "@wwe," the official Twitter handle for World Wrestling Entertainment, and was given links to the official WWE Web site, as well as links to WWE and related pages on Google+. I did the same search and was given the same results, however the WWE Twitter account did not show up.
Meanwhile, Facebook, one of Google's chief competitors, has kept mum on the controversy.
Google is already facing FTC scrutiny for its search practices, and in December, the Senate's top-ranking antitrust officials asked the commission to deepen its probe.
EPIC in September also urged the FTC to investigate Google for favoring YouTube in search over other video sites.