While the deal is not closed and talks could end without result, such information might yield a treasure trove of insight for both search users and advertisers. That’s because it represents search based on what people are actually interested in rather than just crunching massive amounts of information and muscling it into something useful. And it would also presumably give Bing a little leg up on Google (GOOG), since data will be available on it that is not available on the search giant, made more important as Facebook’s information-generating audience grows ever larger.
The next time you run a search for "2010 election" on Bing and see a skewed amount of Republican results, it might be because you clicked on Newt Gingrich's, Rudy Giuliani's, and Michael Steele's "Like This" buttons on Facebook.
$240 million investment exclusive 500 million users
But Facebook has a lot to lose if it starts selling out data to third-party companies. Earlier this year when the site began exposing more private user information than before, there was an intense backlash. Searching for "how to delete Facebook account" became the top query on Google. It was a sobering reality check for Facebook that it does in fact still need to please users. Their loyalty can't be taken for granted or manipulated.
