The wide-ranging Federal Trade Commission investigation into Google’s potential anti-competitive practices has been expanded to include its Google+ social networking service, according to a Bloomberg report citing “people familiar with the situation.”

The news is likely to please critics like the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), which earlier this week called for the FTC to investigate the recent search changes called Search Plus Your World. Besides EPIC, many others, including Twitter, have questioned whether the new features favor Google’s own services over those of competitors.

Google in June of last year acknowledged the probe by the FTC. Though the agency has never specified the scope of the investigation, it was reportedly focused on the company’s search business — trying to determine whether the search behemoth was somehow unfairly exploiting its dominance in the sector.

Google declined to comment about the widening of the probe, according to the Bloomberg report.

Related Topics: Google: Antitrust | Google: Legal | Top News

About The Author: Pamela Parker is a contributing editor for Search Engine Land. She’s a well-respected authority on digital marketing, having reported and written on the subject since 1998, including a stint as managing editor of ClickZ. She’s also worked to help monetize independent publishers’ sites at Federated Media Publishing. She blogs about media and marketing at The River and about cooking, gardening and parenthood at Free Range. She can be found on Twitter as @pamelaparker. See more articles by Pamela Parker

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