Facebook and Google are at it again, this time as a result of claims that Facebook has been blocking the spread of Google+ invites in its news feed.
On Tuesday, a Google spokesperson posted a video on Google+ that showed how Google+ invite links were supposedly not showing up in friends' news feeds.
In the video, Randall Safara demonstrates Facebook's limiting of Google+ invites by demonstrating how normal status updates are published to friends' news feeds without any problems, while a link to Google+ published in the same way only shows up in his own feed and is not published to friends.
In the comments on the video, some users also claimed Facebook events were not being shown on Google+.
Google's senior VP of social, Vic Gundotra, reposted the video and said: “We are getting reports of Google+ invite links not showing up on Facebook news feeds. I wonder how widespread this problem is?”
Google reportedly did not take up the issue directly with Facebook before posting the video. Following the spread of the video, a number of people attempted to recreate the test, but found no problem in posting Google+ links on Facebook.
Facebook issued a statement saying it was aware of the video and had been unable to replicate Safara's experience. It also said the Facebook news feed is governed by an algorithm that takes factors in a large number of elements.
“Links or posts may not show up in friend's feeds for any number of reasons,” said Facebook.
Repeat act
This is, however, not the first account of problems relating to Google+ links and information on Facebook. Last month, a Web developer created a Facebook advert asking people to add him to their Circles on Google+.
The ad was headlined: “Add Michael to Google+” and stated: “If you're lucky enough to have a Google+ account, add Michael Lee Johnson, Internet Geek, App Developer, Technological Virtuoso.”
The ad was removed by Facebook and the user was banned from running any adverts on the social network. Facebook cited a violation of its terms of service as the reason why the advert was removed.
In May, Facebook was also caught out for hiring a PR firm to spread anti-Google stories in the media. At the time, Facebook admitted it had hired the firm to spread concerns about Google's privacy policy.
While Google+ was only launched at the end of June, the new social platform is estimated to have 25 million users. Facebook currently has over 750 million registered users.
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