Twitter and Google fall out over personal search

MICRO BLOGGING WEB SITE Twitter has criticised Google for changes it made to its search engine, saying that they will limit web users' exposure to news and damage the internet.

In a statement Twitter slammed the changes saying that they are bad for search and bad for the internet.

Although it has been widely reproduced we have not been able to find the comment on Twitter's communication pages so have had to request an official copy. We are still waiting for that to arrive.

In the meantime, the statement that is repeated far and wide says, "As we've seen time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter. As a result, Twitter accounts and Tweets are often the most relevant (search) results," according to Reuters.

"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."

Twitter is responding to Google changes that make it easier to search within Google+ but ignore alternatives like Twitter and Facebook. Google is unmoved, and has suggested that Twitter being removed from its searches is Twitter's fault.

"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," said a message from search outfit on Google+ that links back to a report about why Google stopped promoting "real time" results on its search results web pages.

Then Google had said that an agreement with Twitter to include its updates in internet search results through a feed had expired.

Update
Twitter responded to our request for information and gave us its statement in full.

"For years, people have relied on Google to deliver the most relevant results anytime they wanted to find something on the Internet," it says.

"Often, they want to know more about world events and breaking news. Twitter has emerged as a vital source of this real-time information, with more than 100 million users sending 250 million Tweets every day on virtually every topic. As we've seen time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter; as a result, Twitter accounts and Tweets are often the most relevant results.

"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."

Twitter also pointed us towards a short statement from its lead counsel, Alex Macgillivray. "Bad day for the Internet," he said in a tweeted message. "I can imagine the dissension @Google to search being warped this way." µ