Facebook Blocking Searches for Google

December 9, 2007

A friend tipped me off today to this. Facebook appears to be blocking searches for ‘Google’. It throws the following error, purporting to be a temporary problem.

Perhaps more interestingly, is that a search for Microsoft or Yahoo goes through fine. I also attempted to user their ‘Advanced Search’, entering Google in the Company field. The search returns the same result. We can only conclude that Facebook is filtering for the keyword Google and refusing to return results.

This comes in the wake of Facebook’s recent Microsoft deal. I don’t know how long searching for Google has been disabled, but one has to at least allow fo the possibility that it is somehow related.

Don your tinfoil hats, and come up with your own theories. Has anyone noticed other keywords that elicit a similar response from Facebook’s search?

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