Bing to Join Forces with Facebook

In a live event at Microsoft’s Silicon Valley campus yesterday, company officials were joined by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to announce their mash-up venture.

The two have created a new module that expands the amount of data produced on a Bing search. The module will show which results a user’s Facebook friends have liked (see photo). The other add-on is in people search. Bing will lead with Facebook friends and allow messaging directly from the search engine.

Microsoft began shipping the module October 13th, and a pop-up on the Bing search page will alert logged-in users to the download. A Microsoft representative confirmed that there are further developments in the pipeline. Reps were also quick to assure the press that no data from Bing will be sent back to Facebook, and that not all Like information will be available. Facebook users will still have the ability to limit information distribution through the current privacy settings.

Representatives neither confirmed nor denied that money changed hands to cement the partnership, but smart observers might take that as an answer in itself.