Trump news: Google finally responds after president launches attack on search giant

'We never rank search results to manipulate political sentiment,' company says

Google has finally responded after Donald Trump launched a remarkable attack on the search giant.

The president claimed that the company was failing to show enough good news about him and suggested it could be prosecuted for doing so. White House staff have suggested that the president is considering new forms of regulation to ensure that search engines show sufficiently positive results.

But Google said that the company and its product do not have any kind of bias towards a political ideology, or to "manipulate political sentiment".

“When users type queries into the Google Search bar, our goal is to make sure they receive the most relevant answers in a matter of seconds," a Google spokesperson said. "Search is not used to set a political agenda and we don't bias our results toward any political ideology.

"Every year, we issue hundreds of improvements to our algorithms to ensure they surface high-quality content in response to users' queries. We continually work to improve Google Search and we never rank search results to manipulate political sentiment."

Mr Trump's initial shocking tweet came at 5.30am local time and was a blistering attack on Google. While Mr Trump has complained about coverage and treatment by technology firms in the past, the posts specifically targeted the search giant.

"Google search results for “Trump News” shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake News Media," he wrote. "In other words, they have it RIGGED, for me & others, so that almost all stories & news is BAD. Fake CNN is prominent. Republican/Conservative & Fair Media is shut out. Illegal?"

Mr Trump's top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, took up that threat of legal action and said that the White House is "taking a look" at whether Google searches should be subject to some regulation.