Spinmeisters @ The Financial Times
The first paragraph in an article from today’s Financial Times:
” Microsoft has had discussions with News Corp over a plan that would involve the media company’s being paid to “de-index” its news websites from Google, setting the scene for a search engine battle that could offer a ray of light to the newspaper industry. “
Nobody is paying anyone to de-index anything.
What really happened was that Murdoch said “Hey, Google is making money off our WSJ news content. They better start paying or we’ll block them.” Google doesn’t want to pay because if they start paying the WSJ they have to start paying everyone.
If Microsoft offers the WSJ payment for letting customers search their content, they’re just trying to make Bing a better product. It’s pro-competitive, not anti-competitive. Yet for some reason the Financial Times, a WSJ competitor, is spinning this as if Microsoft is paying the WSJ to exclude Google.
Murdoch is blazing the path to give newspapers a revenue model that may allow them to survive. If Bing and the WSJ make a search deal, Google’s stock will fall because the free party will be over. Newspaper company stocks will start rising because their papers may have a future again.
Interesting Times! (only a little bit of pun intended)