Is Bing paying News Corp to delist websites from Google?

Bing has signed a deal with News Corp which gives them access to their content. It should not be really all that important except that News Corp only a few weeks ago had sent out feelers that they were about to de-list their websites from Google Search. This will probably start another round of the competition between Google and Bing.

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Google vs Bing

  • Bing has signed up a deal with News Corp and will be paying for exclusive material from their newspapers and journals. This most definitely means News Corp will de-list their website from Google search in return. What does it really imply? It implies that you cannot search for News Corp content using Google.
  • This might in a way force Google do to the same, that is pay for news content and hence in the long run hurt their profits. Will Google follow Bing? I doubt it will. The loser in this case can be News Corp, who will have it’s website content show up only to people using Bing and no visitors will be directed from Google.
  • Finally Google does not make any money from Google News so this would not really dent Google at all.

Blogs and Tweets

  • Some news companies do have legitimate concerns because if their content is free to view it can also end up being copied by bloggers which in a way will finally hurt original creators of the content.
  • What if their interpretation is different? Most respectable bloggers would never really copy material online. But if something that is news worthy will be commented upon and sometimes a alternative viewpoint presented.
  • Even if News Corp is not listed on Google, it can still end up being on Google Search engine in the form of references by tweets and blog articles.

Who really owns the News?

The question is really debatable. Can a company lay claim to an event that happens in the public domain. I think that the way forward for news content providers would be to monetize their websites by having visitors and show them advertisements. This is done by many news providers anyways.

To expect people to pay for subscription is something that will probably not work. People are not really going to pay for content which they get for free somewhere else. For example you can gets access to news from a ‘tweet’ on Twitter. It does not even need a Search Engine to get the word around now a days.

What do you think about this latest ongoing tussle between Bing and Google. Will the ultimate loser be Bing or Google? Or will it be News Corp? Let me know through your comments. 😉

2 Comments

Rishabh November 24, 2009

If News Corp blocked google from indexing, stating the fact that the content may be misused, then what’s the point of allowing Bing? Internet is a free information resource. And if MS thinks that it will make everything paid, think again, Mr. Gates

Aditya Kane November 24, 2009

News Corp has not stated that the content is misused. They claim mainly they loose revenues as people who are not subscribers still get to view their content through Google. The point of allowing Bing is to Bing is paying money to them. News Corp is smart, they are making money at the expense of Bing’s over enthusiastic zeal to undermine Google. But as Google makes no money from Google News, I wonder what the whole idea is. 😉