Earlier this month Google launched “Search Plus Your World,” the integration of Google+ when users do an online search of anything.  Just a couple of days after the launch, privacy and anti-competitive issues were raised, and some are even urging the FCC to look into Google’s strategy.

And so the war begins.

A team of engineers at Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, in consultation with several other social networking companies, launched the “Don’t be Evil” bookmarklet featured on the “Focus on the user” site.  The point of this little project is to include other social networking sites in looking for results, not just G+.

A walkthrough video (see below) found on the site provides a better understanding on how the “Don’t be Evil” bookmarklet works.  First off, they did not use other search engines, they used Google and Google’s search tool, which identifies the social profiles within the first ten pages of Google results (top 100 results). The ones Google ranks highest — whether they are from Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Quora, Tumblr, Foursquare, Crunchbase, FriendFeed, Stack Overflow, Github or Google+ — replace the previous results that could only be from Google+.

Second, you need the code for the “Don’t be Evil” bookmarklet, which is found on the site.  You just drag the bookmark link onto your bookmark bar.  Once you click on the bookmarklet, the search results will now show information from more relevant social networking sites.  You don’t have to click on the bookmarklet every time you do a search as long as you don’t click away from Google.

But before you go and try it out, check first if “Search Plus Your World” is already integrated in your search–it hasn’t really rolled out everywhere, just a few regions in the US. If you can’t see G+ results in your search, then you don’t have it, which means you can’t try the “Don’t be Evil” bookmarklet.

Is this a smart move?

This actually made me think of SiliconANGLE’s Tom Foremski’s question, “Is it wise for Google to gamble further loss of search quality and relevancy, just so that it can show rising usage of G+?”

Google boasts that they have over 90 million G+ users in which 60% of them use G+ each day, and more than 80% each week.  If they are so confident with G+’s performance, why are they so desperate in integrating it in/with all of their products/services?

They built their empire on search, toppling Yahoo! in the process.  They are known as “The Search Giant” because they deliver relevant and pertinent results, though some still say they are biased.  But if they focus solely on G+ for social results, which, let’s be honest, not everyone really uses their G+ accounts, they would be delivering useless data.

So if you want unbiased search results that includes social networking site data, go ahead and “Don’t be Evil.” ;)