Microsoft on Monday began letting Bing search results reflect "likes" of people's friends at Facebook as the social networking star and the software colossus grew closer.

"The best decisions are not just fueled by facts, they require the opinions and emotions of your friends," Bing senior vice president Yusuf Mehdi said in a release.

"We're marrying fact-based search results with your friends' street smarts to combine the best data on the Web with the opinions of the people you trust the most and the collective IQ of the Web."

Microsoft also added a "Bing bar" button that Facebook members can use to indicate a "Like" for any web page they visit.

In October, Facebook and Microsoft announced they were working together to personalizing Internet searches.

"This is just the beginning; there is going to be a whole lot more to come over time," Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said as the collaboration was revealed.

Likes, interests and other information shared at Facebook hold the potential to let search engines tailor online searches to individuals and personalize results.

Microsoft's partnership with Facebook dates back four years to when the social networking service had just 100 employees and seven million members.

Microsoft paid 240 million dollars in late 2007 for a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook. Bing is used to power Internet searches at the social network.

Bing has been striving to close ground on Internet search king Google, which dominates the US market. Google executives have discussed the importance of making searches more personal and social.

earlier related report
Winklevoss twins denied a new Facebook hearing
San Francisco (AFP) May 16, 2011 - A federal appeals court on Monday denied Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss a second shot at getting out of a deal they made in a lawsuit charging that Mark Zuckerberg stole their idea for Facebook.

The US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a bid by the identical twin brothers to have a full panel of 11 judges second guess a ruling made in April by a three-justice panel.

The three-judge panel said that litigation in the case "must come to an end" and threw out the bid by the Winkevosses to review the settlement.

Facebook said in a concise statement that it was pleased with the court's decision.

The Winklevoss brothers could take their case to the US Supreme Court, which would also have the option of not hearing the matter.

An attorney for the twins has argued that Facebook held back information about the estimated value of the California-based social networking firm while reaching a $65 million dollar settlement with the brothers.

The twins inked a settlement two years ago that got them $20 million in cash and $45 million worth of stock valued at $36 per share.

The value of that yet-to-be-issued stock has skyrocketed along with Facebook's estimated market value, which was placed at $50 billion early this year.

The brothers challenged the settlement, which was supposed to be confidential, on the grounds that Zuckerberg suckered them during settlement talks by not revealing Facebook internally valued the stock at $9.

The lower figure would have resulted in the Winklevoss twins getting many more shares.

Facebook has said it was under no obligation to volunteer the stock option information during settlement negotiations and that the information was not intentionally withheld.

"The Winklevosses are not the first parties bested by a competitor who then seek to gain through litigation what they were unable to achieve in the marketplace," the three-judge panel said in their ruling.

"With the help of a team of lawyers and a financial advisor, they made a deal that appears quite favorable in light of recent market activity."

The Winklevosses claim they enlisted Zuckerberg to finish software code for their ConnectU social-networking website while they were all students at Harvard University in 2003.

Zuckerberg, a second year student at the time, took their code and their idea and launched Facebook in February 2004 instead of holding up his end of the deal, according to the brothers. Facebook rejects that account.

Hollywood made the saga famous in the hit film "The Social Network."