Google recently unveiled the ‘Search Plus Your World’ option for their search engine. This more personal way to browse the web might bring up privacy and antitrust concerns.
Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said that they are considering filing a letter with the FTC. “We believe this is something that the FTC needs to look at,” Rotenberg said.
While this move by Google should help them better compete with Facebook and its more than 800 million users, some critics are saying that they’re using their leadership in Internet search to favor its own products and take on its main competitor. “Google is an entrenched player trying to fight off its challenger Facebook by using its market dominance in a separate sector,” Rotenberg said. “I think that should trouble people.”
Microsoft has teamed up with Facebook for their Bing search engine, but this move by Google is attracting more attention because Google handles over 66 percent of the Internet searches in the U.S. Google Fellow Amit Singhal said the company has taken important steps to make its new feature private and secure, and noted they were open to including information from Facebook, Twitter and other social networks.
“However,” added Singhal. “It has to be done in a way that the user experience doesn’t deteriorate over time and that users are in control over what they see from whom and not some third party.”
Source: latimesblogs.com
