LaLa will continue to power Google’s music search after Apple buy-out

When Apple purchased streaming music service Lala a couple of weeks ago, the most plausible use for such an acquisition — the addition of streaming functionality to iTunes — promptly caused our butts to scuttle in anticipation of iTunes-in-the-cloud.

Still, the buy was problematic. Considering that it has been rumored that Apple was buying LaLa to kill it and that it was a purchase made just to thwart Google, some wondered if Apple, in a worst case scenario, intended to shutter the entire site, or in a slightly better case scenario, would simply shut Google out of LaLa… an action that would promptly kill Google’s Music Search, which is powered by LaLa.

Luckily, it looks like Apple has no plans to shut Google out of LaLa. “We have enjoyed a good relationship with Apple for many years, and that continues to be the case,” R.J. Pittman, Google director of product management, told BusinessWeek. “We are agreeing to continue to leave the service as it is.”

Even so, this has to be a lesson to Google: make sure you own the companies and tech that power your search methods. With Apple now in control of LaLa (and consequently, Google Music), Google can’t be resting easy.

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