Google ‘surprised’ by Twitter’s criticism

By Brendan Sasso - 01/11/12 03:19 PM ET

Google shot back at Twitter after the microblogging service criticized Google for launching a new feature that will highlight its own social networking content.

“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,” Google said in a brief note Tuesday night.

The post linked to a story on Search Engine Land that reported Google’s agreement with Twitter to carry its content expired in July.

Google’s new feature, Search plus Your World, will allow users to search for “personal results,” such as posts by their friends, alongside public results.

The information will be tailored for individual users but will only include results from Google’s social networking site, Google+, and not other sites such as Facebook or Twitter.

But Twitter slammed the announcement Tuesday and warned that the feature would lead people to Google+ instead of Twitter to find news.

“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,” Twitter said in a statement.

“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.”

One of the most direct challenges to Twitter is that the feature will allow users to browse the Google+ profiles of prominent authors and musicians. Twitter relies on its popular celebrity users to drive traffic.

The complaint from Twitter comes as Google is already under scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission for potentially engaging in anticompetitive business practices.

Lawmakers including Sens. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) have questioned whether Google is using its dominant position in online searches to give it an unfair advantage in other markets by ranking its own services — such as Google Maps, Google Travel or YouTube — higher in search results.

Google last year settled charges with the FTC that it misled consumers by automatically opting them in to its now defunct social network, Google Buzz.

The settlement bars Google from misrepresenting its privacy policies and requires the company to submit to outside privacy audits.