[LINK] Murdoch to block Google

[Jan Whitaker]

Murdoch could block Google searches entirely


http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/nov/09/murdoch-google

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/rupert-murdoch>Rupert 
Murdoch says he will remove stories from Google's 
search index as a way to encourage people to pay for content online.

In an interview with Sky News Australia, the 
mogul said that newspapers in his media empire – 
including 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/sun>the Sun, 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/thetimes>the 
Times and the 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/wallstreetjournal>Wall 
Street Journal – would consider blocking Google 
entirely once they had enacted plans to charge 
people for reading their stories on the web.

In recent months, Murdoch his lieutenants have 
stepped up their war of words with Google, 
accusing it of "kleptomania" and acting as a 
"parasite" for including News Corp content in its 
<http://news.google.com>Google News pages. But 
asked why News Corp executives had not chosen to 
simply remove their websites entirely from 
Google's search indexes – a simple technical 
operation – Murdoch said just such a move was on the cards.

"I think we will, but that's when we start 
charging," he said. "We have it already with the 
Wall Street Journal. We have a wall, but it's not 
right to the ceiling. You can get, usually, the 
first paragraph from any story - but if you're 
not a paying subscriber to WSJ.com all you get is 
a paragraph and a subscription form."

The 78-year-old mogul's assertion, however, is 
not actually correct: users who click through to 
screened WSJ.com articles from Google searches 
are usually offered the full text of the story 
without any subscription block. It is only users 
who find their way to the story through the Wall 
Street Journal's website who are told they must 
subscribe before they can read further.

Murdoch added that he did not agree with the idea 
that 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/searchengines>search 
engines fell under "fair use" rules - an argument 
many aggregator websites use as part of their 
legal justification for reproducing excerpts of news stories online.

"There's a doctrine called fair use, which we 
believe to be challenged in the courts and would 
bar it altogether... but we'll take that slowly."
[snip a lot more of the story]


Google's reaction:

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/nov/09/rupert-murdoch-google>Charles 
Arthur: Murdoch's threat unlikely to worry Google

[end of it:  ]
Google, meanwhile, will remain unmoved. "Google 
delivers more than a billion consumer visits to 
newspaper websites each month. These visits offer 
the publishers a business opportunity, the chance 
to hook a reader with compelling content, to make 
money with advertisements or to offer online 
subscriptions," wrote 
<http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2009/07/working-with-news-publishers.html>Google 
senior business product manager Josh Cohen in a 
blog post in July. "The truth is that news 
publishers, like all other content owners, are in 
complete control when it comes not only to what 
content they make available on the web, but also 
who can access it and at what price." For 
Murdoch, the price, it seems, is not right.

The Guardian's collection of articles on the 
subject: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/charging-for-content


Jan


Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com

Our truest response to the irrationality of the 
world is to paint or sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer

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