back to article Murdoch threatens to yank News Corp. from Google News

Rupert Murdoch says his company will forbid its content from appearing in Google search results once pay-walls are set up across News Corp websites. Speaking in an interview with Sky News Australia on Friday, the media tycoon reiterated previous threats to begin charging for online content across the company's newspapers, …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Yanking News Corp. from Google News

    Surely the correct response is 'Rejoice!'

  2. Goat Jam
    FAIL

    Murdoch

    The man has no clue.

    He will get his "fewer customers who pay", but nowhere near enough to support his wobbling media juggernaut.

    Go for it Rupert. It will be a grand day when all your wishes come true*

    * For us, not you. You are destined to FAIL

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Is that the sound of ...

    ... a dinosaur moaning about the development and pace of mammals and all things mammalian?

    I suppose the 19-20th century technologies and tech advocates had to make some noise some time.

    Out with the old and in with the new?

  4. gollux
    Go

    Move it!

    Come on goofie Rupie, get on with it. Show some 'can do resolve' and move it. We're tired of the wussie teenager darefest, if you're really gonna do it, then jump in.

  5. Adrian Jones

    Simple solution

    Google should pull every link to anything Murdoch owned.

    See how they like the reduction in traffic / ad revenue.

  6. Dan White
    Jobs Horns

    Please God, do it...

    Nothing would make me happier than to see this odious turd and his hate filled propaganda machine disappear from search engine results

  7. Puck
    FAIL

    Sun Online readers paying? hah!

    i cannot conceive of a customer profile less likely to pay for content than that of Sun Online's readers.

    Come to think of it, Times Online will kill 80% of its ad revenue if it erects said paywall: it's readers are average Joe Spods like me, misers saving money on buying the paper edition of it and other favourite newspapers.

    the only successful mass circulation paywalled daily is the FT, which punts VERY specialised OCCUPATIONAL financial information at very wealthy people who get a tax deduction for the expense.

    how much says Times Online goes back to non-paywalled, ad-revenue only model within a year?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    sky news

    have a 37 minute interview with his rupeship? It takes that long to lick his arse?

  9. Wibble
    Coffee/keyboard

    Goodbye. We won't miss you

    Excellent. The back of the Sun. And the upmarket version, The Times. Gone. I wonder how many people, Murdock aside, who will miss them on-line?

    I suppose Murdock does deserve some credit for this brave move which relies heavily on all other news operations moving down the same paywall strewn path. Interesting with the BBC though; they can't put up paywalls. And what of the 'merkin operators, will they?

    The really sad thing is that the world isn't generally that bothered with news per se. Look at the amount of "news" in the Sun; mostly so called entertainment and ranting drivel. Although it would be nice to see The Mail and Express disappear down the same plug-hole.

    Can Rupert put the genie back in the box? Unlikely, but time will tell.

  10. Shannon Jacobs
    Pint

    News Corp is a special oxymoron

    Murdoch only plays with the news to steal some credibility for his propaganda arms. If I recognize it as a Murdoch source, I'm much LESS likely to read it.

    Actually, I've long thought that Google should include some exclusion options on the Google News system. There are certain sources that are so full of BS that I'd much prefer not wasting screen space on their links--and heaven forbid that I might make a mistake and give them a click.

  11. ceebee

    agh but the Beeb saves us all...

    Of course, unsaid in all of this is the real elephant in Mr Murdoch's room ..the BBC.

    I am sure he and his cohorts will lobby the UK government (especially an incoming conservative one) and EU to prevent news sites such as the BBC and other "state" broadcasters providing "competing" free new services.

    It is already happening.... German state broadcasters, ZDF and ARD have been required to reduce their web presence following lobbying by the media interests in Germany.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Grenade

    On the downside

    I hate the guy just as much as any other sensible person hates the Dirty (former) Digger, but...

    At the next UK election, the Murdoch-supported Tories get in, Rupes having gone off his former mate Tony's former mates (if you see what I mean).

    Then within weeks the Murdoch-owned Tories pull the rug from under the BBC website and news.bbc.co.uk is no more.

    Then what?

  13. Mark 65
    FAIL

    Idiot

    Murdoch may be wealthy but that was attained in a bygone era. If he thinks he can charge for the tat his papers put out he is seriously mistaken. Sure there'll be idiots that will probably pay - the World's never been short of a fool or two. But as for rather having fewer paying customers than one headline readers this will come true. There'll be about 5 of them in total.

    One headline reading is about all most papers are worth. It's also a bit hypocritical of him when a lot of his material comes from AP and other headline vendors with seemingly little investigation or journalistic insight offered thereafter. I can still remember when The Times was actually worth reading - just about.

  14. Stuart 17
    Thumb Up

    Please Murdoch just do it & then do one yourself!

    Newnow have been campaigning about this for a while now...

    http://www.newsnow.co.uk/press/openletter-qa.html

    I hope as most do that they Murdoch will fail and Sky and the rest will crumple to nothingness, realistically and unfortunately it will not happen though.

    Sky are hated by the football masses for their clearly biast support of the top four, so much so they are commonly refered to as the Sky Four yet somehow their stranglehold is as stong as ever if not stronger since the dimise of Sentanta!

    The whole notion that people should be charged for effectively directing users to their site is rediculas, before I frequented NewNow I had never been on the Suns website unfortunately I have been on that monstrocity since now maybe I will be saved.

    One other point of course, I emailed Struan Bartlett, Managing Director of NewsNow to alert him to this article, if Murdoch gets his way and the internet goes down that route would I have to pay TheReg for that? I guess so, good job you aren't the monopolistic megalomaniacal power house of the news world which they are!

    P.S. I have checked and don't fear NewNow will not charge you for my link above! :P

  15. Lars Silver badge
    Happy

    Old age = end of life

    I do not think Murdoch's problem is Google but rather the sad facts of life. King or not, age will end it all.

    Wish Google would provide a filter for its news that one could define for ones use of the sevice.

  16. John G Imrie
    Happy

    And with one fell swoop ...

    NewsCorp increases the relavency of all Google Search results.

    Go for it Roop

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    *cough*

    robots.txt anyone?

    I'm pretty sure Google adheres to that particular standard.

  18. Juiceman

    Sounds like a request.

    Google should preemptively oblige him. He's the CEO asking to opt out of Google News, who has more authority to request this for his company than him?

  19. Paul
    FAIL

    murdorobots.txt

    I think this is just headline grabbing posturing. I recall those newspapers in belgium who complained about google stealing their content so google dropped them... they quickly realised it was suicide to become invisible in the world's primary search engine

    http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9715605-7.html

    I can't believe that Murdoch's technical advisor are so clueless that noone has explained it's a ten-second fix to keep google out - will someone please tell this purveyor of shite to go search for (and I presume he'd have to use bing or yahoo :-) robots.txt

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Go Rupert!!!

    The day him and his companies (yes, ALL of them) disappear from the face of the earth, I will throw a party, a REALLY BIG party. I expect I'll have plenty of guests.........

  21. Frozen Ghost
    FAIL

    bring on the lesson

    Better NewsCorp learn the lesson for everyone than a news outlet I care about.

    The only reason I pay for a newspaper sometimes is because its on paper (gasp) and hence convenient to read away from a computer. The online section would need a serious 'value add' to make it worth paying for.

    Possibly Murdoch knows something about large scale colour e-ink screens but I think he is 5+ years out.

  22. Jodo Kast
    Troll

    Google is making money

    Google is making money off of these links. Sounds like someone is unhappy with the terms.

    One partner should not be struggling to keep employees while the other is trying to find places to hide billions.

    Google is as much of a bully as any large corporation. No one is going to do anything about it. (Some might, those are the courageous few.)

  23. Alex 3
    Pint

    Ha!

    Love the irony - the entire interview is available on YouTube (er... google)....

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Cheers digger

    This will make it a lot easier to find readable, reliable stuff on Google news. I actively avoid any NC bilge in any case. That said the old boy does have a bit of a nose for the future on occasion, so who knows? Maybe the great unwashed of Scunthorpe really will be digging deep for an online sub to The Scum, and all the others who tried and died just got the formula wrong.

  25. Tam Lin

    Brilliant

    The easiest way for Murdoch to monetize his serial fiction sites is to have his six-bit-witted minions MLM subscriptions to each other at their Chamber of Commerce rituals. I can picture them now, pensively choosing cable TV-like intertube packages, basing them on their personal favorites such as Soldier of Fortune.com, Tractor Pull Interactive, and Fox News.

  26. ZenCoder
    FAIL

    Old media vs new ...

    1) robots.txt ... you can tell the search engines what to index and what not to index.

    2) Which is more likely ....

    People search google news ... they don't find links to his sites content .. do they ...

    A) go to one of his news sites and pay a subscription and stop using google news.

    B) just follow the links to the stories that are available.

    3) Who wants to bet this guy isn't a old media dinosaur who can't adapt, but is simply being provocative to generate publicity?

  27. Winkypop Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Alziemers?

    Is no one at News Corp brave enough to point out that the Big Boss Man has lost the plot?

    "You tell him!"

    "No, you tell him..."

    Fail-O-rama

  28. MusicChirp
    FAIL

    Anyone ever see Citizen Kane? How about Citizen Murdoch?

    I see many similarities: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_Kane

  29. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    "Oh, woe is me, for I am undone ..... and uncovered as a fool puppeteer." .... said the Media Mogul

    ..... , disgraced unbelievably with uncharacteristic candour?

    "Come to think of it, Times Online will kill 80% of its ad revenue if it erects said paywall:" .... By Puck Posted Monday 9th November 2009 23:44 GMT

    Puck,

    Here is a something else which will kill off the Times altogether, as sure as eggs are eggs, and it will be quite telling to see if it is printed Online.

    And the Register always Win Wins All Round, and goes from Strength to Strength with a Positively Reinforcing Readership/Leadership when it prints Live News Commentary from its Truth and Subject Matter Experts.

    <<<" Chris K wrote:

    So is our Foreign Secretary now a part-timer, cancelling appointments in order to pursue his personal career interests?

    Doesn't this breach ministerial guidelines? If not, why not?

    November 9, 2009 11:46 PM GMT"

    And all at the Expense of the Public Purse?

    Mr Miliband has said he is not interested in the post. Is he proved to be a liar whose word means nothing? Is that what Politics has become?

    Speak up please. The world and its dogs of war want to know.... and would even claim they have the right to demand that they know the truth ... at all times, and at all times in the Times, otherwise does the newspaper degrade into the status of a Mad Comic, whose tales are spun to deceive and conceal.

    That would be a retrograde revolutionary terrorist threat to humanity, methinks, and Catastrophic for its Media Players.

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6910176.ece >>>

  30. peter 3

    More free news

    Everybody loves the BBC and it doesn't cost anything, Murdoch should learn a thing or two.

  31. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse
    Stop

    Re : Elephant in the room

    Of course the other side of the coin is that the BBC is a service funded by you, for you, and you have a right to make your voice heard, rather than simply allowing any future government to decide the fate of the BBC without public consultation.

    Can't see BBC news being pulled myself though.

  32. KeithSloan

    Pariar

    The whole Murdoch family are Preditary Pariah's they want us all to PAY for News and TV I hope

    they FAIL big time

    Sky made people pay for watching sport, once they get to a dominate market share they will just up the price even more and start charging for pay per view. If it was not for the BBC they would be a monolopy.

    They hate the BBC because they cannot compete against it - Long live the bbc website.

    My personal position is I will not pay for News or TV ( Other than license fee ) no matter what they do

  33. Doug Glass
    Happy

    Ah Yes

    So he's deciding to do as he pleases with what he owns. Just another form of neutrality, net or otherwise, when you (the general "you" of course) have the freedom to do as you please with what belongs to you. Gotta stay legal now, but, you know ... freedom. Some of us actually do still have it.

    Wow, it's so good to see a group whine (whinge??) so early in the morning. Almost as good as the smell of napalm in the morning.

  34. Andrew Katz

    So where does that leave the Sky EPG?

    Sky charges channels a fortune to appear on the Sky electronic programme guide. Which is a sort of index: you click on a channel, and end up watching it. Hmm. Anyone see a parallel here? So, for consistency, Rupe is either arguing that he should pay the channels for the pleasure of being to show their listing content on the EPG, or alternatively, that he should pay Google for the pleasure of being listed.

    Interestingly, when BSkyB was originally established, the European Commission insisted that Sky enable any compatible satellite channel be visible through the BSkyB box, without BSkyB acting as gatekeeper, or receiving any payment. BSkyB implemented this requirement as narrowly as possible, by making it possible to access non-epg channels by going through a complex menu structure requiring the entry of frequency and other information: an order of magnitude more complex than just selecting "BBC4" from the EPG. Sky were fully aware at that stage of the value of the EPG, and essentially sidestepped the regulations by this sneaky ploy.

  35. bexley

    only one thing bothers me about this

    tha other news companies might follow suit.

    i say let him go ahead, i wont miss it. greedy bastard that he is. the less of his lies we see the better. america for one will be a better place without news corp "news".

    it will be fine so long as he does not persuade others to follow suit.

    i look forward to an internet without neo con news sites polluting public opinion.

  36. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Go on Google..

    ... he says he doesn't need you, that you "steal" from him. Go on.....pull all News International's "news" sites off your searches and lets see what happens to his site stats.

    How does the stupid moron think most people find their way to his websites?

    I notice he's only mentioning Google, so does that mean he doesn't think Bing is anything to worry about or do you think it means he's going to ink "exclusive" deals with Microsoft?

  37. bexley

    p.s

    in all of the sites i have not seen a single positive comment about this, looks like the news crop board have got themselves a duke of Edinburgh style PR man at the helm now.

    oh the damage this is doing to their public opinion, hopefully his advertisers will be running a mile after this.

    die news corp die

  38. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    BBC

    For all those saying "Everybody loves the BBC and it doesn't cost anything, Murdoch should learn a thing or two."

    Murdoch's not a fool. He's demonstrated before that he's a smart cookie, he plays the long game, and positions himself appropriately. He's extremely powerful and an amoral fucker of the highest order.

    His target here isn't, in the short term, getting people to pay for his content. His target is the BBC. He's already sided with David Cameron, and the Tories are going to savage the BBC when they get into government.

    Murdoch doesn't like competition. If he can get the BBC emasculated, then there won't be any significant competition. The other news organisations are desperate to get more money from the web, because although it hasn't stopped twitching yet, print is dead. They'll all jump on Murdoch's bandwagon at the first opportunity, once the dirty work's been done.

    If you notice, Murdoch isn't calling for a privatised BBC that Sky and NewsInt can compete "fairly" against. He wants the BBC cut down to size and their activites curtailed. Murdoch's worst nightmare is a privatised, off the lead BBC, because a profit-driven BBC would eat him alive.

    Read between the lines, people, and don't make the mistake of underestimating Murdoch and his foul brood.

  39. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    News aggregator

    If I'm looking for a news item, I'll more than likely Google it and pick one from the list of results - chances are I'll pass over the red top links. Does Mr M really REALLY think that someone will Google for a news result, not find one from thesun.co.uk, read the rest and then think "hmm, I really want to hear what perspective the Sun has put on this story, I'll go to the site and hand over my credit card details"

    For papers in Murdoch's empire, it generally needs micropayments to take off, not subscriptions. So far, I don't believe anyone has made those work. The only news site I know of in the UK that has made subscriptions work, is the FT, and let's face it that their readers are hardly red top readers too.

    The only fly in this ointment is the Times. There are still people who think of this as a discerning read and would be surprised to hear who owned it. It may pass the subscription test.

  40. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    this greedy twat is suing the BBC

    He's also revealed that he is SUING the BBC for copyright infringement. If you can't compete with them, sue them.

  41. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge
    Grenade

    The Treason of Vanity is a Fairy Beast*, Personified

    "Alziemers? ... Is no one at News Corp brave enough to point out that the Big Boss Man has lost the plot? "You tell him!" "No, you tell him..." Fail-O-rama" ..... By Winkypop Posted Tuesday 10th November 2009 04:41 GMT.

    And now for something completely different and germane.

    Has anyone else noticed that the PM, who is Virtually Blind and severely physically sight impaired, by even his own grudging admission, is never seen wearing spectacles ....... what a clever little chappie he is, playing to the gallery and his adoring fanatics so boldly. Who do you imagine pulls his strings and winds him up to perform as instructed ....... A Campbell or P Mandelson? Rupert's Mole or a Natty Vole? :-)

    And what do we think of the show so far?...... RUBBISH.

    *Fickle and Untrue ... False PaperTiger [Saviour of the World, I think not, ergo is Spin, the Dish of Every Day and Reality an Invention of Market Players and nowadays,ZerodDay Traders and Cloudy Non-State ProActors in Great Game Shares for Stock Wealth Consolidation and Diversification/Foreign and Alien Markets Capture, which Brings us Back to the Beginning and a Titanic Rain Reign with Chinese AIdDrivers .....Posted Tuesday 10th November 2009 10:13 GMT... http://theregister.co.uk/2009/11/09/bot_herders_coopt_google_appengine/comments]

    And you won't find that Breaking the Bank System News in any Traditional Rag Brainwashing Operation.

  42. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Murdoch Strategy

    I imagine that Murdoch can only be plotting what is best for his empire. As soon as he goes pay-to-view he will insist those offering free-to-view have an unfair advantage, are illegally cross-subsidising or some such nonsense and then move to force them to go pay-to-view or close down. Goodbye BBC news, goodbye ITN.

    It's not so much about maximising his profits short-term but in minimising the competition, forcing everyone left to be on his 'level playing field' where he believes he has an advantage. Free-to-view has an automatic advantage so his strategy has to be to remove that in order to maximise his own profit.

    Ultimately it's about clipping the wings of the BBC and forcefully changing their business model which will benefit him in other areas of his empire. The Murdoch's of this world will not be happy until nothing is free, we become accustomed to paying for everything. Unfortunately he has quite a lot of sway with politicians and public sympathetic to that ideology.

    Murdoch is just a very big tip of an even bigger iceberg. The only cleverness about the man is in positioning to say we will still have free choice as long as we pay for it, and it's right that we pay for what we want. He's the Capitalist dream embodied.

  43. Anonymous Hero
    Grenade

    He'd rather have fewer people reading his "content".

    Me too, it'll hopefully diminish the the amount of poison his shit rags infect our culture and politics with.

  44. Jacqui Smith's DVD Collection!
    Thumb Up

    DO IT FOR THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY!

    PLEASE GOOGLE PLEASE!!!!

    CUT THE BASTARD OFF!

  45. Jon 66
    FAIL

    hmmm

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/robots.txt

    http://www.thesun.co.uk/robots.txt

  46. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    @hmmm

    Translation please - or a summary of the impact of those files ?

  47. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    42 Change Climates ..... Visualise the Word according to Needs Feeds

    Now that would be an interesting and entertaining Heavy MetaDataBase Program for the BBC to make/Spooky Single Intelligence Accounting to Commission ......... How a bunch of Assorted Virtual Pioneering Pirates/SMARTer Intelligent Mavericks Commandeer the Internet, with Buddies Plugged into the GIG and Networks InterNetworking JApplications, to do their Bidding for a New World Order Civil CyberSpace Project of Colossal Proportions, for Global Operating Devices into NEUKlearer HyperRadioProActive IT and EMP Waves with Cloud Control ....... A CyberIntelAIgent Security Theatre of Operations Mentoring and Monitoring with GCHQ Covers/Stealth Assets. ...... Real Live MkUltra Sensitive Future Programming for the Beta Global Control of Human Perception ..... with Present Placement Technology Phorming Alien Methodology.

    In fact, is that not what should be done in Reality by Special Intelligence Services Worldwide ..... rather than doing whatever else they may be doing to justify themselves in Perpetuating Havoc and Addressing Chaos for their Masters, whoever the Hell they would be, in whatever Fox hole they would be lurking in.

    It is not as if it is Difficult to Change Humanity and Reprogram the Species, is it, whenever IT is so Easy now that Everything is Connecting at so many Levels. Surely you cannot expect to remain Savages forever. That is totally illogical, and would surely be a sign of Certifiable Madness and/or Stupidity and Badness aka Evil.

    It is hereby Registered Globally and So Proposed. I Kid U Not, whoever is Batting for, and Running UKGBNI.

    You might like to consider that it is Actually Already Happening but Necessarily ..... in Deep Sleeper Cover for the Absolutely Fabulous Currency of Plausible Deniability, although that may have one asking oneself ..... Who would Think to Be so Bold with Global Operating Devices?

    Man or Machinery ...... http://tinyurl.com/Turing-BetaTested

  48. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @AC 10th November 2009 00:11

    "Then What?"

    Then I still won't be reading or paying for Murdoch's excuse for news.

  49. Anonymous Coward
    Welcome

    BBC website

    anon:

    "Then within weeks the Murdoch-owned Tories pull the rug from under the BBC website and news.bbc.co.uk is no more. Then what?"

    Hopefully the license fee will be made voluntary - so we can see how many people really want to pay for it - or reduced to something sensible, like a tenner.

    If you love the BBC and want to keep it funded as it is now, you could have picked a better example of editorial excellence than its crappy online photocopying service. No one would miss BBC Online.

  50. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge
    Coat

    Kudos due where Kudos Shines

    Of course,and this is a Real Probability for AI, the old digger, Rupert could do the 42 Change Climates thing himself, .... well he could easily finance it with the loose change in his inside pocket, and have ITs Production Team lead the World with a LOVE Program which Introduces Intelligence into the Entertainment/Brainwashing Mix for CyberIntelAIgent Edutainment and Virtual Being, for that is where Mankind is Heading .....for IT is a Virgin Space in which the Failures and Wrongs of the Past are Denied Access and the Future is Transparently Shared Online for Present Product Placement and Visual BetaTesting. In the Beginning, was there always Viable Imagination.

    That would Shake up a few Governments and Create a Lively Stir in the Markets, methinks.

    I think I'll send Liz Murdoch's Shine Group and Kudos's Jane Featherstone (Creative Director) this Register page to see if they are Switched on to the Power of the Internet for the Future ... and can be Tempted with AI's Sweet and Sticky SurReal Surprises. [:-)An Infant is Born and does Grow ]

    And,....... you know the way that spooky snooping technology is supposed to be able to pick up anomalies and plots of terror and world domination over communications channels, well, that is all dependent upon the Intelligence of those who are monitoring machines, isn't it, which would suggest that the problem/threats will be from machines, which is real weird ..... but totally Real in a Virtual World ..... and can they believe what they are hearing even when IT spells it out for them.

    And if the truth be told, there are more than just a few who could make Great Beta Games Use of World Domination Technology than the Current Incumbent Pretenders/Crowd/Shower/Cloud, so let's see what happens or whether everyone is Petrified and Frightened to Death of Making and Taking an Onward Move and Crazy Step into what is now surely a Known Unknown.

  51. Daemon ZOGG
    Pint

    Let's Take A Poll...

    Considering, loony Rupie's old-fart age and the damage he's doing to his own business.. Which will hit the ground first? His crumbling empire or him?

    ;)

  52. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Pass the Cheeze, Mr Sleaze

    Old Rupert Murdock

    Vile old bastard and his Grea$e for $leaze tabloid journalism.....

    The Best Headline he can write is "I'm Dead".....

  53. Levente Szileszky
    Thumb Up

    C'mon, shrimp on the Barbie, DO IT! JUST DO IT, you pathetic, ugly old midget!

    Nothing more than an obvious and rather lame bluff, coming from an ugly, old, toothless midget.

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