Twitter: Google search changes are 'bad for the internet'

Twitter has criticised Google after the internet giant implemented new features that are said to 'warp' search results. 


Google's new 'Search plus your world' feature, which combines Google search results with those from Google+, has been heavily criticised by Twitter's general counsel Alex Macgillivray, who is also a previous employee of Google.


Macgillivray tweeted from his account: 'Bad day for the Internet. Having been there, I can imagine the dissension at Google to search being warped this way.'


The changes, which are currently only active in the US, mean that logged-in Google+ users will primarily see results from the social network when they key in a search term.


Twitter has been angered by the fact that Google will show results for celebrity Google+ accounts but not for Facebook or Twitter ones.
A Twitter statement read: 'We’re concerned that, as a result of Google’s changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone.
'We think that’s bad for people, publishers, news organisations and Twitter users.'


When speaking to Marketing Land, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt denied accusations that the new feature prioritised Plus over other social networks.


When launching the service, Google said: 'Search is still limited to a universe of web pages created publicly, mostly by people you’ve never met.


'Today, we’re changing that by bringing your world, rich with people and information, into search.


'We’re transforming Google into a search engine that understands not only content, but also people and relationships.


'We began this transformation with Social Search, and today we’re taking another big step in this direction.'


Industry expert Danny Sullivan criticised Google for the implementation of the new feature and said it was 'exactly the kind of thing that the antitrust people are screaming about'.


Google has responded to the criticism in a statement, saying: 'We are a bit surprised by Twitter's comments about Search plus Your World, because they chose not to renew their agreement with us last summer, and since then we have observed their rel=nofollow instructions. 
'We want to help you find the most relevant information from your friends and social connections, no matter what site it’s on. However, Google does not have access to fully crawl the content on some sites, so it’s not possible for us to surface all that information.'