Rupert Murdoch’s war on Google News

Rupert Murdoch, one of the world’s most iconic media tycoons, has fired off another salvo against online search engines that aggregate news stories.

The main culprit drawing Murdoch’s ire is Google, which grabs the headlines and summaries from online news websites and blogs and ranks them on the Google News service. The print mogul’s complaint stems from the traffic Google generates on the back of content generated by media outlets.

As part of his battle against the world’s largest search company, Murdoch is attempting to broker a deal with Microsoft that would see News Corp content supplied exclusively to the software giant’s fledgling “Bing” search engine, as reported on TechCrunch and the Financial Times – though the latter is behind a pay-wall.

The idea behind the deal is News Corp would receive compensation for its content – something it does not receive from Google – and Microsoft would theoretically be able to drive up the traffic to its search offering with exclusive content.

Murdoch has voiced his displeasure with online search engines in the past, though things started coming to a head when he told Sky News – which he owns the controlling interest in – that the flagship titles in the News Corp stable would consider blocking Google once a paid subscription model was in place.

“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.”

When the Australian-born tycoon first announced the plan to charge for access to News Corp’s titles online, the announcement was met with almost universal ridicule. Murdoch’s plan was to use the established model of the Wall Street Journal for other News Corp titles like News.com.au and its subsidiaries like The Australian, The Daily Telegraph, The Sun and The Times in London and a plethora of other titles under the company’s banner.

“Quality journalism is not cheap and an industry that gives away its content is simply cannibalizing its ability to produce good reporting,” Murdoch said during News Corp’s fourth quarter earnings call.

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Tags: Bing, Google, Google News, Internet, News Corp., Online, Rupert Murdoch, web technology