I'm saying it's fine for Twitter and FB to withhold that data. But they can't then complain about not being ranked fairly. Conversely, Google started off compla

I'm saying it's fine for Twitter and FB to withhold that data. But they can't then complain about not being ranked fairly. Conversely, Google started off complaining about not getting access to FB and Twitter data. Then they shut up and made a competing product. FB and Twitter are free to do the same, but I think what Google has just showed is that it's a lot easier for Google to make a compelling social network than it is for FB or Twitter to make a compelling search engine. They're complaining because they're scared, and, quite frankly, they should be. I honestly don't really see the downside to them opening their data to Google, though. They were in a better position before Google started G+. Google didn't want to make a social network. They just wanted the data. They had the open social initiative and were trying to make social networks interoperable, but FB and Twitter resisted. They sort of forced Google into the position of competing directly with them. Now they're complaining about it. What really confuses me is what was the downside to them opening up to Google? (Esp. Twitter, who actually had a deal where they were getting paid for access to the firehose.) Google wasn't competing with them directly. In fact, Google was in a position to direct a lot of traffic to them. The only thing I can imagine is that both FB and Twitter thought they were going to be able to obviate search and tried aggressively for that. I don't know why they thought Google would sit still for that, though.