Twitter has accused Google of promoting Google + in its search results. This follows the launch of Google’s Search Plus Your World (SPYW) this week, which personalises results for users. 

SPYW incorporates Google + pages, and it is this feature that has sparked off this latest social media row. 

Twitter went as far as to call it a “bad day for the internet”, pointing out that news often breaks first on Twitter. 

The press statement says: “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 organizations and Twitter users.”

Google hit back with a posting on Google saying that the agreement with Twitter to carry its results had expired, taking with it much of the content that was in the service with it. 

The search engine giant urges Twitter to make a new deal soon so that people can find tweets on Google. 

Google also confirmed to Mashable that it has never recognised a Twitter handle which uses the “@” symbol. 

However, if a user types in a company name and “Twitter” on a Google search, the company’s Twitter feed will appear before its Google + page. 

Although Google only has 65% of the search marketing, some see the pushing of Google + in search results as anticompetitive. 

The new feature has also raised data protection issues because it combines search engine results with a user’s personal information shared through Google +. 

A search for “dogs” could surface personal pictures of your pet dog as well as more generic pages about dogs.  

A privacy watchdog group is threatening to file a complaint with the US Federal Trade Commission that SPYW raises privacy and antitrust concerns. 

Posted by 

Neil Turner