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Rep. Edward Markey, a prominent U.S. lawmaker on privacy issues, announced earlier this week he was concerned with Google’s new privacy policy, and he further addressed his worries on Thursday by calling for a probe into Google’s handling of consumer data.

Google’s offerings include its globally popular search engine, Gmail, YouTube, Search plus Your World, Google+, and more, which are streamlined under the merging of 60 privacy policies intended to “mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.” The unified policy’s primary objective is to assemble and integrate information from across Google’s products and services as a single throng of data that the Mountain View, Calif.-based Company can use to target advertising dollars.

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Markey released a Jan. 26 statement contending that the new policy changes should allot premium consumer control, and in the meantime, he plans to ask the Federal Communications Commission to investigate if such options exists for Google users:

“All consumers should have the right to say no to sharing of their personal information, particularly when young people are involved.  Google’s new privacy policy should enable consumers to opt-out if they don’t want their use of YouTube to morph into YouTrack.  Consumers – not corporations – should have control over their own personal information, especially for children and teens. I plan to ask the Federal Trade Commission whether Google’s planned changes to its privacy policy violate Google’s recent settlement with the agency.”

More information is available below.

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Google’s social network Google+ is now open for teenagers, according to Google’s Vice President of Product Management Bradley Horowitz’s announcement in a post today. Everyone who is old enough for a Google Account (13-years-old and up in most countries) can now sign up for Google+. The executive boasted the many security and privacy features of Google+ that help establish the difference between friends, acquaintances and strangers— a must for underage users.

Between strong user protections and teen-focused content, it’s our hope that young adults will feel at home (and have some fun) on Google+. And of course, we do have at least one thing in common with our newest users: we’re both busy growing up.

The Google+ service, he argued, has “awesome features that teens really want” whilst encouraging safe behavior “through appropriate defaults and in-product help.” In addition, abuse-reporting tools are easy to find and use, Horowitz noted. Details on age requirements on Google Accounts are available here. Teens can also get more information on Google+ safety features in the newly launched Google+ Safety Center, with interesting resources available for educators, teenagers and parents.

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Google is adamant on accelerating work on its Google+ social network. By doing so, the company has already stepped on people’s toes. An upcoming Q&A feature from Google does not seem to be aimed squarely at Quora, a popular question-and-answer website, but the Quora people understandably cann0t be too happy about this development. See, according to VentureBeat, the search company is trying out a new capability called “Ask on Google+” allowing you to ask friends about the topics you are searching for. It is akin to Facebook Questions, with one huge advantage: One accesses it easily at the bottom of one’s search results:

Click the link to ask your friends any question related to restaurants, movies, how to make friends on Google+, or other topics. Your question will automatically be posted to your Google+ stream for your friends to answer.

Granted, it is nowhere near as complete as Quora and it lacks the basic component, a Q&A engine. In its current implementation, asking stuff on Google+ from your search results simply puts up an overlay window with a pre-populated Google+ post related to your search query. For example, if I were searching for “2012 Android smartphones,” clicking the “Ask on Google+” link would create the “Hi there! I have a question about 2012 Android smartphones…” message. You can edit the message, select your audience, or add a location, photo, video or URL. The folks with whom you shared the message will not be able to select from custom choices like with Facebook Answers. Still, it certainly does not mean crowd-sourcing answers from your Google+ friends will not take some allure off Quora and similar services— quite the contrary.

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When Google+ first launched, a good majority of people went crazy when they saw you could not use nicknames on the service. Luckily, Google is about to change that. Google’s Bradley Horowitz made a post on Google+ today, announcing that users will soon be able to add a nickname next to their full name in the coming days. You can see this modeled above with blogger Louis “Luigi” Gray.

The setting will appear under Edit Profile, where you can select your name by clicking on “More options.” It is worth noting that this will change your name across all of your Google Profiles.

For names that Google has deemed unacceptable, you can challenge it for personal use by providing the following information to the review team:

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Search Engine Land pointed us to a new browser bookmarklet dubbed “Don’t Be Evil” created by Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook engineers to alter the controversial social search results displayed by Google since its most recent “Search plus Your World” update.

Earlier this month Google began rolling out the new “Search plus Your World” update to Google.com search results. The update consists of Personal results, Profiles in Search, and People and Pages, all of which provide prominent quick links to Google+ content relevant to your search query. It sparked controversy as the update arguably favors Google’s own Google+ social network over relevant social content from competitive services.

The tool is being open-sourced and available free. After performing a search, you simply click the “Don’t Be Evil” bookmarklet in your browser of choice (no IE support), and the social “Search plus Your World” results will be altered to also include content from Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Tumblr, Github, Foursquare, LinkedIn, and a hand full of others. The image above shows Google’s Search plus Your World results on the left with the altered results after clicking the “Don’t Be Evil” on the right.

You might be thinking that the tool is instead favoring websites like Facebook or Twitter, much the same way Google is accused of favoring Google+. However, the creators explained that the tool actually utilizes Google’s own search results to determine the most relevant social content to display. Search Engine Land explained exactly how it works:

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From David Beckham, and the Muppets, to Newt Gingrich, Google has hosted several special Google+ Hangouts giving users a chance to get their questions answered and interact with politicians and celebrities. Perhaps its most important Hangout yet is going to take place on Jan. 30 with President Obama, who is set to answer the top- voted user submitted questions in a live-streamed interview.

Starting from now until Jan. 28, you can head over to the White House YouTube channel to upload a text or video question submission for the President. Users will decide on the best questions by casting their vote, and a few select individuals will be chosen to speak with the President live during the Google+ Hangout. YouTube noted in its blog post that video submissions are preferred and should be approximately 20 seconds in length.

“Your Interview” with President Obama will be streamed live on Jan. 30 at 5:30 p.m. ET. You can watch the live stream then and submit your questions here.

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According to a post on the unofficial Google Operating System blog, Google redesigned the account sign up process and now requires users to create a Google Profile, a Gmail account, and automatically join Google+. This will certainly help the continued growth of Google+ that currently sits around 90 million users, along with 350 million active Gmail users, according to Larry Page’s announcement during the Google’s Q4 2011 earnings call.

Before the redesign that has not yet rolled out to everyone, users could create an account by simply entering an email address or creating a Gmail account. According to the report, the new form requires users to fill out a name, gender, and optionally a mobile phone number. However, perhaps the most significant change is the fact that new Google account holders will have a Google+ account created automatically, and they will have to fill out a Google Profile during the sign up process. Users can still delete their Google+ and Google Profile if they wish. They will also be able to delete Gmail after creating an account. The change seems to have rolled out only through Google’s homepage and a few services, with the old sign up form still accessible elsewhere.

Google explained on the new page:

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Launching on the Google+ Games platform, Google is showing off a new game involving its Google Maps product. The game, as you can see demonstrated in the video above, involves rolling a blue ball around a map. The game is set to launch sometime in February.

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The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is expanding its antitrust probe of Google to include the inspection of social network service Google+, according to Bloomberg.

The publication sourced two people “familiar with the situation,” and cited “competition issues raised by Google+” as the primary aspect of the FTC’s investigation into whether the globally popular search engine gives preference to its own services. The FTC is also inquiring whether such practices violate antitrust laws, according to Bloomberg, who could not identify its sources due to the investigation’s nonpublic status.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company rolled out “Search, Plus Your World” to its search engine Jan. 10 and dubbed the revision a “personal results” feature that displays Google+ photographs, news and comments when user’s conduct Web searches. The Electronic Privacy Information Center promptly called upon the FTC on Jan. 12 to investigate the recent search changes in a letter posted on its website…

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Google introduced a new feature called “Search plus Your World” yesterday that includes both public results with privately shared posts and profiles from your Google+ account meshed within Google search results. Obviously, this has raised some concern among users, but also clutters search results. Luckily, Lifehacker posted a nice guide on how to turn off personalized search results, and it only takes two steps.

1. Select “Search settings” on Google.com.
2. Navigate to the “Personal results” section and select the option “Do not use personal results.”

As Lifehacker pointed out, this setting does not actually disable personal results, but rather makes it the default to have them not be displayed. If there is ever a brief second you want to go back, you can quickly toggle the setting within your search result.

Google is continuing to push Google+, whether you like it or not.

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The search giant today introduced a couple enhancements to Hangouts, the group video chat feature of the Google+ social service. The new look of the Hangouts interface follows the design language used across Google’s many properties on the web. Thanks to the optimized layout, there is now more real estate for the actual live video feed, leading to a better and more immersive user experience.

Besides the revamped look, Hangouts now support screen sharing, which Google said, “Has graduated from Hangouts with Extras.” Hangouts screen sharing is designed to enable anyone to easily share what is on his or her computer screen with everyone in the hangout. Google noted that many other extras would soon graduate to Hangouts.

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CrunchFund partner and TechCrunch contributor MG Siegler made quite the stir over the past few days, when Google removed his Google+ image that showed him raising his middle finger. Once Google removed the image, Siegler uploaded the photograph a second time, only to be removed again. The second time, Google provided the following explanation to Siegler:

As the first point of interaction with a user’s profile, all profile photos on Google+ are reviewed to make sure they are in line with our User Content and Conduct Policy. Our policy page states, “Your Profile Picture cannot include mature or offensive content.” Your profile photo was taken down as a violation of this policy. If you have further questions about the policies on Google+ you can visit http://www.google.com/intl/en/+/policy/content.html, or click the “Content Policy” link located in the footer of Google+ pages.

Google explained that this is not directed just towards Siegler. Google revealed that it reviews every user’s profile when it is first created, and that all profile pictures are reviewed. Siegler himself wrote a post on the subject, and then later followed up. Marketing Land pointed to the rule Seigler broke that some might call debatable:

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Research firm Elance put together some calculations about the growth of Google’s social network Google Plus and the statistics seem outstanding. Paul Allen, known as the founder of Ancestry.com, leads the team, and he shared their calculations on his Google Plus page.

As of Dec. 27, Allen writes, the Google Plus user base sits at right around 62 million users. This is up from the 50 million users reported on Dec. 1, demonstrating massive growth. The posting noted that 25 percent of all Google Plus users joined in December. These numbers represent a daily growth of approximately 625,000 users.

As a comparison, Facebook’s last shared user base statistic was 800 million users as of late September. Earlier this year, Twitter reported 460,000 signups per day, which has obviously shot up after its integration with iOS 5 and for other reasons.

“If this rate of new signups (625k daily) continues then Google+ will reach 100 million users on Feb. 25th and 200 million users on August 3,” reported Allen. “They will finish 2012 with 293 million users.”

The reason for the massive December growth for Google Plus is unclear, but it may have to do with the release of the heavily Google-integrated Galaxy Nexus phone or due to new marketing tactics surrounding the 2011 holiday season.

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Google accelerated advertising for its social network by showcasing Jim Henson’s The Muppets in a new commercial about the Google Plus Hangouts feature.

The Muppets performed an impromptu band session as they rocked out to a cover of  “Under Pressure” by Queen and David Bowie through a Google Plus Hangout. Google explained that Hangouts are the “best way” for users to say: “I’m online and want to hangout!”

A Hangout lets users “chill with friends that are scrolling the web,” “use live video chat,” or “coordinate plans.” In other words, the feature is essentially a hyped-up video conferencing capability through Google Plus. The multi-person video chat tool allows up to 10 participants to hang out for free.

Google recently released a trio of new television commercials that promote its social network by featuring Hangouts with the Muppets, NBA announcers, Steve Kerr, Spero Dedes, Bill Walton, Kenny Smith, and Jon Barry. This is not the first time Google collaborated with the The Muppets to advertise one of its products. There was another Muppets Hangout Nov. 7, and the search engine giant celebrated the 75th birthday of Muppet creator Jim Henson by forming an interactive Muppets’ logo for Google.

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Google renewed its search bar collaboration last week with Mozilla, effectively keeping Firefox in business, and the transaction has caused a Chrome engineer to come forth and defend the alliance.

According to The Mozilla Blog, Google paid just shy of $300 million per year to be the default choice in Mozilla’s Firefox browser. The total amount is almost $1 billion, a large leap from its previous arrangement, due to competing interest from both Microsoft and Yahoo.

Chrome engineer Peter Kasting spent Christmas Eve posting a Google Plus “rant” to discuss how misunderstood the transaction is amidst a firestorm of media reports that accuse the search engine giant of funding a web competitor.

Referencing MG Siegler’s Google Plus post on the matter, Kasting felt compelled to respond.

“People never seem to understand why Google builds Chrome no matter how many times I try to pound it into their heads,” wrote Kasting. ” It’s very simple: the primary goal of Chrome is to make the web advance as much and as quickly as possible. That’s it.”

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Google Plus announced a “goodie basket” of functional features and big improvements for the upcoming New Year on its Official Google Blog today.

Bradley Horowitz, vice president of Google Plus product, posted the blog and claimed the new features were on everyone’s wish list.

The first feature mentioned is “Pump up (or down) the volume,” and through the addition, Google will enable users to fine-tune their streams.

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“When viewing the stream for a particular circle, you’ll now see a slider at the top that lets you adjust how posts from that circle should be blended into the main stream,” wrote Horowitz in the blog post. “That way you’ll never miss a post from that special someone, and you can tweak these settings to form your own ‘perfect stream.’”

The first big improvement discussed in the blog is “More useful and attractive notifications,” and with it, Google offers sneak previews to allow users efficient social content navigation…
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Google’s Vic Gundotra just announced on his Google+ page a host of new Hangouts features meant to “go beyond the status update”. In short, you can now hangout on any post (an invitation will be added to the comments), call any phone number in the world and conference in anyone (free outbound calls to US and Canada, international calling rates are “super, super low”) and initiate a hangout session from the official Google+ app for Android or iPhone by tapping the new hangout icon.

The executive also shared an interesting milestone for Hangouts on Air, saying “hundreds of people” whitelisted as part of their trial now have the ability to broadcast their hangouts to the world. “Our goal is to enable this for everyone on the planet”, Gundotra noted. Initiating a Hangout session from your phone requires a new Google+ app, which will be available in Android Market within a few days, Google said (“coming soon” to the App Store).

The official Google blog has more information.

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Google continued with their rollout of Google+ integration today by adding a new feature to their blogging platform Blogger that allows users to easily share a post when publishing. Now, when publishing a post, you will be prompted to share a snippet of the post with specified circles on Google+. They also mentioned that the ability to use your Google+ profile is now available to all Blogger users after initially only being available to Blogger in Draft users.

The new feature will only be available to users that have linked their Google+ profile to their Blogger account and you will also of course be able to disable it by navigating to Settings> Posts and Comments. If you’d prefer, you can also share posts to Google+ by clicking the “Share” link from within your post list.

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Google has been making a point of steadily introducing new features into Google+, and Google+ features into the rest of their services. Today the social service is getting better integrated into Gmail with a bunch of new features that let you access and utilize your circles from within your inbox.

Firstly, the most recent post any given friend has shared with you will be displayed to the right of each of their emails. There is also an “Add to circles” button to add them if you haven’t already. Next up is filters for Google+ circles (image above), allowing you to filter your mails by all of your circles or a specific one. Circle names can also be attached in the subject line of emails, much the same as labels.

Another nice addition is automatic syncing of contact information. Now, in Gmail each entry for your contacts will be filled out automatically using info from the person’s Google profile. Changes in the future will of course stay in sync and the standalone version of Google Contacts gets the same treatment. Last but not least is the ability to automatically “Share” attachments to Google+ from directly in the email (image below). A new “Share” link will appear next to the “View” and “Download” links from before.

These new features will be rolling out to all users over the next couple days and were apparently the result of a discussion held with users on the Gmail Google+ page in July. More screenshots of the new features below:

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Google has just pushed out an update to the Google+ iOS app compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad, bringing it up to version 1.0.7.2940 and introducing a few new features including full resolution photo uploads, search, and photo +1. Also included are the usual bug fixes and performance enhancements. As always, you can grab the update from the App Store now or download the free app if you haven’t already.

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Mark Zuckerberg gives us a look into what he really thinks about Google+ in a small clip from this one-hour special on Facebook’s creator aired by the BBC (via TNW). When asked if Google+ is a threat or if he ‘takes it seriously’, Zuckerberg responded (skip to 54:32):

Yeah Google’s a great company, and I think we want to look at and learn from everything that they do. But at the same time, people have shared a lot on Facebook and have already told a lot of their life story on Facebook. And we think that we have by far better tools for doing that.

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