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A Microsoft and News Corp. search pact? It adds up

By | November 22, 2009, 5:41pm PST

Microsoft and News Corp. are reportedly discussing a deal where Rupert Murdoch would take his properties and delist them from Google. These sites would presumably wind up on Bing.

The Financial Times reported that Microsoft and News Corp. have talked about de-indexing its news Web sites from Google. In addition:

The Financial Times has learnt that Microsoft has also approached other big online publishers to persuade them to remove their sites from Google’s search engine.

Crazy? Not if the money is right.

Microsoft’s grand plan would be to hamper Google by taking key properties away. And the software giant’s idea to approach other newspapers makes sense too. After all, Microsoft’s search partner Yahoo is really tight with newspapers.

The big picture here: Microsoft wants to ding Google, but it also wants market share. In many respects, search engines could resemble the stock exchanges. The Nasdaq and New York Stock Exchange spend a lot of time and money on poaching big-name companies from each other. However, the investor doesn’t really care where a company lists shares. You use both exchanges.

Carry that analogy out to search and you see what Microsoft is pushing with Bing. Microsoft only wants to be on par with Google. If Bing has properties that garner attention perhaps consumers will use Microsoft’s search a little more. If folks use Bing and Google throughout the day it’s a clear win for Microsoft.

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Topics

Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., News Corp., Search, Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic.

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Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan has nothing to disclose. He doesn’t hold investments in the technology companies he covers.

Biography

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic. He was most recently Executive Editor of News and Blogs at ZDNet. Prior to that he was executive news editor at eWeek and news editor at Baseline. He also served as the East Coast news editor and finance editor at CNET News.com. Larry has covered the technology and financial services industry since 1995, publishing articles in WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning magazine. He's a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and the University of Delaware.

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RE: A Microsoft and News Corp. search pact? It adds up
dfwekrdfe70-24353633083440261747093332297663 5th Nov
ezctjv,good post!
View in thread
0 Votes
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Goodbye Rupert
davebarnes 22nd Nov 2009
I am not going to use Bing.
Google will find stuff I am interested in.
Too lazy to use Bing.
Bing is dead.
Something will dethrone Google, but it ain't Bing.
0 Votes
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Well, I am not sure of the quality of the clicks that news organizations
DonnieBoy 22nd Nov 2009
get from Google or any other search engine. In any
case, MS has very deep pockets, and are willing to
pay anything and everything to dent Google.

Could backfire for MS, but, I doubt it will have
any negative for Murdoch.
0 Votes
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Huh?
Gis Bun 23rd Nov 2009
Bing is dead? Interesting. Lsst I heard, Bing is slowly taking a percent or two off Google's lead. May not be much but it's the way Firefox started.

"Too lazy to use Bing." - no comments!
0 Votes
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Actually Comscore's ratings are flawed
HollywoodDog 23rd Nov 2009
they don't include video, local and map searches not on the primary domain. If you do include those things, Bang's actualy market share is about 3.5% Not the 9 or 10 percent they claim.
0 Votes
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If you ask Microsoft, or course, it'll be much higher than that.
fr0thy2 23rd Nov 2009
"There's a buzz about Bing" they were telling the media a while ago. No, there's a lot of computers out there in the hands of people too ignorant to point their home page away from Monopolysoft's settings.

Take away Microsoft's illegal anti-competitive hold on the OEM's and they're nothing, and never would have been.

Chrome won't kill Microsoft, Microsoft did that to themselves by never moving away from their utter control freak attitude and arrogance, that came from the sad little men who saw fit to abuse the markets in any which way as long as they could have more, more, more.

Thanks god mankind has moved beyond these muppets.
0 Votes
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Anti-competitive as ALWAYS. Good ole Microsoft!
fr0thy2 23rd Nov 2009
Die soon please.
0 Votes
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Goodbye Google...You can't earn money without paying for content made by
transposeIT 22nd Nov 2009
others...Google has milked the industry for years without giving anything back...
0 Votes
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This might not hurt Google at all. There are multiple news organizations
DonnieBoy Updated - 22nd Nov 2009
out there, with the same stories, and the typical
search user might be just as happy with them.

We know that Murdoch will come out of this
smelling pretty good though.
0 Votes
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It will be an interesting gambit...
probabilist 22nd Nov 2009
I suspect that what Murdoch will find is that there is too much competition
among content producers for such an arrangement to generate significant
traffic to Bing, and that Google will be able to fill in any lost revenue by
pointing to other pages with equally good information.

Still, it's good to see Murdoch really trying to do something, rather than
just whining.
0 Votes
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There's no such conspiracy.
Dealing 22nd Nov 2009
I believe there's no such conspiracy behind Murdoch's move against Google. However, the truth is much much more ridiculous.

This guy is trying to charge for all the contents available on his websites. The contents that will be free everywhere else.

This is absolutely insane. It's like charging people for morning news. Nobody is gonna pay a dime for that. Instead, they will just change the provider(aka. URL) which would take less than 10 seconds to do.

This will spell the end to News Corporations.
0 Votes
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There have been some good arguments, that the quality of the clicks comming
DonnieBoy 22nd Nov 2009
from Google or any search engine are not that
good. So, Murdoch might not lose that much, but,
get a small fortune from MS.

Though on the other side, people will likely
keep right on using Google, and get led to other
news sites with the same or similar content.

Might be good for Murdoch, and bad for
Microsoft, and neutral for Google.
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On par?
Fred Fredrickson 22nd Nov 2009
"Microsoft only wants to be on par with Google"

Rubbish. Microsoft wants to bury Google and all other competition, there is no other explination for this deal, it's entirely consistent with previous behaviour. Perhaps all other newspapers should pull their content from Bing, Rupert and Bill-or-Steve can play in by themselves in their own perfect world.

While competition among search engines is good, having exclusive deals so that content from certain properties can only be found by a specific search engine is entirely counter to the purpose of a search engine.

Anti-trust action is likely, it would be difficult to show this doesn't hurt consumers - unless the argument is that don't owe anything to consumers that don't pay.
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Well, Murdoch does not have a monopoly in news, and MS does not have a
DonnieBoy 22nd Nov 2009
monopoly in search, so not sure there is anything
illegal here.

MS is willing to pay billions to get even 1% of
search share from Google. The dirty games will
continue . . . .
0 Votes
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Agree on Microsoft
dukeoconnor 23rd Nov 2009
Although Microsoft has lost its aura of invincibility, killing rather than
beating their competition is in their DNA and I doubt this will change
until they get a new CEO.
0 Votes
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Well, if they CAN get paid for their sites, I guess more power to them.
DonnieBoy 22nd Nov 2009
Though, the danger is that the same news is available
on other sites, and Google search users will be happy
reading the news from other sites.

But, hey, this is a free market after all, and if
Murdoch wants to try to get paid by search engines, he
has the right.

And, let us not forget that after losing billions
online over the years, Microsoft is getting desperate
to get something going, and is flush with cash from the
Windows and Office franchises. Couple that with a keen
desire to cut off some of Google's air as they threaten
the cash cows.

I commend Murdoch for taking advantage of the
situation!!!!
0 Votes
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RE: A Microsoft and News Corp. search pact? It adds up
DannyO_0x98 22nd Nov 2009
Well. I wondered - and in print! - if this was coming.

I used the pattern of Zune/Universal/IPod where Microsoft
at the outset gave Uni. 1 dollar per Zune manufactured. As
you may also recall, NBC pulled tv shows from the iTunes
store. A year later, NBC was back. I have no idea if
Microsoft continues to pay money to Uni. I didn't hear if
there were any other RIAA members who carted away
pirate booty for the manufacture of personal mp3 players.

Hey guys, knock yourself out. Seems to me that if you pull
someone from a search pool, someone else bubbles up.

But part of me thinks this is also about keeping up
relationships in that Microsoft would really love it if the
media properties of NewCorp were distributed via
Windows-exclusive formats and channels. As for what
NewsCorp is thinking, I am credulous that it's in any way
astute. My reasons? I got one word for you: MySpace.
0 Votes
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If you mention MySpace
probabilist 22nd Nov 2009
You need to remember that it's been said that the only reason the site has
been profitable for the last few years has been Google's guaranteed
payments deal with...News Corp. It's perfectly plausible that Murdoch is
doing the same thing over again.
0 Votes
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Staff
Exactly.
Larry Dignan 23rd Nov 2009
It's all about the dough. And Microsoft has the dough and this desire to get search share. Will this deal change the world? Probably not. But it will line Murdoch's pockets.
0 Votes
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Once Murdoch
honeymonster 23rd Nov 2009
gets the news agencies on board as well, it
will really start to hurt Google.

Already now I imagine that the news agencies
prohibits further distribution of their feeds
as part of their licensing terms with news
outlets. Suppose they stressed that this also
means observing due diligence in preventing the
news from leaking directly onto indexing
services. This would mean that news outlets
would either have to pay a higher
"redistribution" license *or* take preventative
measures.

That move would prevent smaller discount
outlets from seizing the "index holes" left
behind by Murduchs businesses.

But perhaps more important, what Murdoch does
is show the world that you can charge for
content ; you don't have to offer everything
for free to Google. If he can prove that
he may be starting a paradigm shift.

Instead of being a either-or (payed
subscription *or* online (Google) ad financed),
he may actually show the 3rd option: Require
Google/Bing/Yahoo to pay for the benefits
they reap off from the content.

Googles stranglehold on driving traffic to
content only works for as long as there is no sizable competitor. It is in Murdochs interest
to boost Bing to become a credible alternative.

Once that happens he can play them against each
other and let healthy competition decide the
true value of his content assets.

Right now he (and other content providers) has
good reason to believe that the search monopoly
does not offer him a fair price (zero).
0 Votes
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One important point. People reading the content are still NOT paying. It is
DonnieBoy 23rd Nov 2009
just that Murdoch will get a percent of ad revenue
that Microsoft gets from the search ads that
people click on when searching for news.
0 Votes
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But don't be surprised
honeymonster 23rd Nov 2009
if indexing some of the content now behind a
paywall is part of this deal. It would make a
lot of sense: News sites (especially those with
real journalists) have content which is
expensive to produce but is hard to get readers
to pay for.

Now cater for some of the more casual readers,
those who would be interested in your premium
content because they found a link through a
search.

Today they can't find such a link, because the
content is behind the paywall. But take some of
that content (say - the news and some analysis)
and offer it exclusively to one search engine
and charge for it that way.
0 Votes
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Though for Microsoft, I imagine it will just be more losses. I do not know
DonnieBoy 23rd Nov 2009
the size of the check, but, I bet it will be
pretty big.
0 Votes
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Those comparisons are similar but not equivalent
InanelyGreat 23rd Nov 2009
In the case of Universal, what they failed to realize when they cut themselves off from iTunes is that they were also removing themselves from the whole ecosystem around the iPod. Most people want to be able to view all their content without having to switch between programs or devices, so Universal lost out and had to come crawling back. Switching between search engines is still a bit of a hassle, but still easy. (Or you coud just go here: http://bingandgoogle.com)

As for MySpace, that was a clumsy attempt to capitalize on the social networking craze. Compared to Facebook, which has changed rapidly over the years, MySpace has been almost stagnant. Clearly, they entered this market without really understanding it.

In contrast, Murdoch understands the news business much better. While it's debatable as to whether this is a tenable plan to remain profitable in the move to online media over the long term, he does have a large portfolio of content that people consume. I know some people that would see Fox's exodus from Google as something of a cleansing, and others that would probably have no problem following them to Bing--especially since Bing is a pretty competitive alternative is most other respects at this point. I don't want to get into a debate about the quality of Fox's news, but if this includes not only national media like Fox News and the WSJ but also the local stations, it could prove interesting to watch.
0 Votes
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And the best part is...
Zogg 23rd Nov 2009
You would then be able to use Google without having to worry about ending up on one of Rupert Murdoch's sites.

What a deal happy !!
0 Votes
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Hey! Great point. Maybe Google should give us the ability to exclude sites
DonnieBoy 23rd Nov 2009
from our searches on a permanent basis!
0 Votes
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RE: A Microsoft and News Corp. search pact? It adds up
gertruded 23rd Nov 2009
Remember, Murdoch will be 79 years old in a few months.
He is from the last century.
0 Votes
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De-listing from Google is a silly idea
Richard_P 23rd Nov 2009
Paying for content makes reasonable sense, and many publications already use this model. I too would consider paying for news if I didn't already have BBC news for free anyway.

However, the idea that you have to remove a site from Google entirely to require payment to view a whole article is just plain silly. Either this story is simply made up, or Murdoch has swallowed a sales pitch from Microsoft hook, line and sinker.
0 Votes
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A waste of money
eMJayy 23rd Nov 2009
It's not like anyone's going to notice. At the end of the day, when a user conducts a news story search on Google, they'll still find the result they were looking for....and that's what ultimately keeps Google on top.
0 Votes
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RE: A Microsoft and News Corp. search pact? It adds up
Brother Martin de Porres 23rd Nov 2009
Rubert Murdoch's NOOZ?

Counter-factual, distorted, un-truthful, Google users should breath a sigh of refief. They want News, not Lies!
0 Votes
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Kamikaze Search Suicide
rtb 23rd Nov 2009
Ahh, M$ and Newscorp search in a vacuum. The biggest thing about search is all about not being on the highly competitive first page of results there are literally thousands of pages for any imaginable search. To purposely make your site disappear not only off the first page but all togethor, damn, the PR=B$ must be really thick at M$ and Newscorp because the fools are starting believing their own lies.
0 Votes
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Good luck to them...
zkiwi 23rd Nov 2009
Somehow I doubt Murdoch is going to be charging Microsoft a token fee for exclusive access to "his" news. So, they better be prepared to sink large amounts of money into this experiment.

Also, I wonder if either have thought the reaction of governments to a form of "locking up" of public media. At worst, they're going to get hammered by anti-trust entering into what looks like an exclusive/leverage deal. Note that neither Murdoch's group nor Microsoft are particularly well thought of in the EC.
0 Votes
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Its the new axis of evil
paul@... 23rd Nov 2009
Grabbing power by breaking things imagines a future where
no one search engine works successfully. The victim in their
scenario is us, as well as google. Or perhaps more accurately
we are the collateral damage.
0 Votes
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Sorry but GOOGLE will still be no1....
carlsf@... 23rd Nov 2009
I have always used Google reason crisp, clean, and MOST importantly results that are useful.
Never used Yahoo never got useful results.
And as for BING NOT interested (I tried did not like or find useful) and as this is a product forced by default onto users.
Whenever I set up a system for search settings Yahoo and BING get removed and Google is set as default.
GOOGLE is and will always be NO 1 here.
0 Votes
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Bing is good for maps
SMparky 23rd Nov 2009
The 3-D feature on Bing maps is really cool so I use that for looking around the world. The Bing News link is completely broken in Canada (doesn't link to any news when you click it). I've told MS but so far it still doesn't work unless I go to the USA Bing site (but then again the USA is the center of the universe).

The search on the main Bing page is okay but nothing compared with Google. Sadly if you go to the MS website and search internally for their applications it works much worse than using Google. For example. On the MS download site I searched with Bing for "security essentials". It came up with a few hits, but not one of them was for their new product "security essentials". I searched for it on Google and the first link was to the correct MS page. Pretty embarrassing for Bing.

Lol, perhaps MS should have their site de-listed from Google, since Google does a better job indexing MS than MS does?
0 Votes
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RE: A Microsoft and News Corp. search pact? It adds up
Bill Rathbun 23rd Nov 2009
I'd prefer not to have to filter out all the fake news that NewsCorp puts out, so it'd be great to have a Google that is free of any Rupert Murdoch b.s.
0 Votes
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Mixed feelings
jorjitop 23rd Nov 2009
On one hand it is very convenient to use one search engine for all the web, including news sources. But, on the other hand, Google has become far too powerful thanks to their search engine and the advertising revenues it generates. I guess in the long run I prefer degrading Google a bit at this point.

The best of all worlds would be a Firefox like open source search engine that we did not need to be afraid of.
0 Votes
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I'll boycott Bing
angelsix 23rd Nov 2009
Bing (Microsoft) wants to make our lives harder by having search engines get exclusive content, so then to do a thorough search we have to check with multiple search engines. I hate that idea. I also think that by doing this, MS is admitting that Bing can't compete with Google on its own.

I will admit that I'm not giving up much by boycotting Bing, since I've tried Bing and really like Google better.

I hope that Google takes the position that search engines are fair use, and not subject to copyright limitations, and tells Rupert Murdoch to go stuff himself.
0 Votes
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here here
jc3lions@... 3rd Dec 2009
I have used both bing and google search engines
and in my opinion Google is far better.
Microsoft will never be happy until they are
the only company in the world (sorry universe
there may be after all other life forms out
there) and selling just there product for the
price of your soul probably...
Im really starting to hope Google OS wipes the
floor with Microsoft let alone search engine.
0 Votes
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RE: A Microsoft and News Corp. search pact? It adds up
johnpall@... 23rd Nov 2009
Two Monopolies working together that's all we need, more of the same NOT INTERESTED!.
0 Votes
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RE: A Microsoft and News Corp. search pact? It adds up
lawyersoffice@... 25th Nov 2009
Google has it's claws into many things, including hoarding surfers data, some personal.
Google will continue to use this data to stay on top for a while, eventually another search engine will pop-up and knock Google off of the top of the heap.
Microsoft/Bing is eying this.

Lets see what happens.........
0 Votes
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RE: A Microsoft and News Corp. search pact? It adds up
dfwekrdfe70-24353633083440261747093332297663 5th Nov
ezctjv,good post!

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