Rumours are growing around the possibility of Microsoft
paying News Corporation to remove its content from Google.
Rupert Murdoch, the CEO of media giant News Corporation, has
spoken publicly about his dislike of
free content on the web, and is currently building a new
website for The
Times that will charge readers.
Stories have now appeared in the
Financial Times and on
TechCrunch describing alleged meetings between Microsoft and
News Corporation about the possibility of all of News Corporation's
content being listed exclusively on Microsoft's Bing search
engine.
The idea provides a new possibility in the
hunt for a business model for newspapers on the internet, if
other search engines are willing to pay to have access to
providers' content.
Microsoft said it "does not comment on rumour or
speculation".
Google said it is keen to work with publishing companies to find
ways for them to make money.
"Publishers put their content on the web because they want it to
be found," it said. "Google is a tremendous source of promotion for
news organisations, sending them about 100,000 clicks every minute,
so very few choose not to include their material in Google's index.
But the publisher is in control - if they ask us not to include
their content, we won't. We work closely with the newspaper
industry to help find long-term and sustainable models for making
money from news."