Bloomberg: FTC Expands Antitrust Investigation to Include Google+

The Federal Trade Commission has expanded its antitrust investigation of Google’s business and search practices to look into Google+, Bloomberg reports this afternoon.

According to two people familiar with the situation:

“The competition issues raised by Google+ go to the heart of the FTC’s investigation into whether the company is giving preference to its own services and whether that practice violates antitrust laws.”

The news follows several days of withering criticism of Google’s announcement of “Search Plus Your World,” a new feature in which the search giant will feature information from Google+ in personalized results while excluding information from Facebook and Twitter.