News Corp. to boycott Google? Don't make me laugh (or wear a dress)
Filed under: Google , News Corp.
A lot of publishers have been making angry noises recently about news aggregators, which have been profiting from content they played no part in creating while the content producers themselves go begging. But no publisher has yet shown the slightest willingness to take the incredibly simple step that would disrupt this state of affairs: block Google (GOOG) from indexing its stories.Until now.
Of course it would be Rupert Murdoch, that pugnacious iconoclast, vowing to lead the charge. In a recent interview with his own Sky News Australia, the News Corp. (NWS) chairman said his company's news sites will most likely make their stories invisible to Google once they've adopted a pay-to-read model, something he has promised is coming. Murdoch says he's willing to sacrifice the millions of clicks his websites get from Google News and Web searches if it will help persuade readers to subscribe to WSJ.com, nypost.com and foxnews.com, to name a few.
But don't reach for that credit card just yet. Shaking your metaphorical fist at Google is one thing; carrying out your threat is another, and if Murdoch makes good on this one, I will put on this dress and head over to News Corp. headquarters to pay my respects in person.
There's a reason no other publisher has tried blocking Google yet: It would be colossally stupid, and not just because of the massive traffic declines and resulting lost ad revenue. It would also affect the profile of News Corp.'s brands and its ability to acquire and retain top talent. Journalists care about have their work read, discussed and linked to, and hate anything that interferes with that. Look at what happened at Newsday, where longtime columnist Saul Friedman quit after the paper put its website behind a $5-a-week pay wall. If The Wall Street Journal and the Times of London go to stealth mode, you can be sure the best reporters and columnists will abandon them in a heartbeat for outlets with more visibility.
But it won't come to that. Murdoch loves to shoot from the hip, but he never lets a little grandiose posturing keep him from doing what's in his best interest ultimately. After he bought the Journal, Murdoch let it be known he wanted to abandon the website's pay model, only to reverse course after running the numbers. He poured millions into getting the Post to overtake the Daily News in the circulation race, then quietly settled back into second place when the losses piled up. Most recently, he pledged to have all News Corp. news websites charging for content by mid-2010, then admitted that goal is unattainable.
It's hard to say whether Murdoch's latest pronouncement is a negotiation tactic aimed at scaring Google and other aggregators into sharing some of their ad revenue, or whether he's really so angry at the "parasites" he's prepared to drink poison just to hurt them. But it doesn't matter. Either way, Murdoch isn't going to shut the door on Google.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-09-2009 @ 10:46PM
Richard Keane said...
Secret Software & Naked Short Selling
We need NSS arrests - not Insider Trading arrests
It is November 5th, 2009 at high noon and the SEC is all over the news about another arrest. They are all on stage giving this big press conference on 14 arrests for Insider Trading connected to the Galleon Group investigation. Is it Insider Trading? The Government wanted the world to believe this caused the financial meltdown on Wall Street. Three weeks earlier the SEC made the first arrest for Insider Trading involving Raj Rajaratnam and 5 other people on Wall Street.
It is my opinion that the Government and the SEC is involved in a cover up to try and make people think that it was insider trading that caused the crisis of 2008. Let the truth be known. The news media, along with Goldman Sachs and many other Wall Street companies and people of power are all involved in the biggest cover up in the history of the United States. It involves greed to the fullest extend. The SEC is responsible, under the leadership of Christopher Cox in July 2007, the Securities Exchange Commission abolished the Up Tick rule. The elimination of the Up Tick rule created a wave of corruption that grew out of control, based on Naked Short Selling and the use of secret software and super fast computers.
Insider trading has played a role in the financial crisis, yet the story not being told by the news media is the arrest of a Goldman Sachs employee who tried to steal Goldman Sachs secret software. This arrest came over the July 4th Holiday week-end and was aired briefly on a Saturday night on TV and then came Monday July 6th, 2009 and the story disapeared. A few weeks later Goldman Sachs reported its FY 2009 2nd QT earnings ( April – May -June ) and Goldman Sachs made over $100 million dollars a day in 46 of the 64 trading days for that quarter. How could this be possible after a 17 month recession. Wall Street changed two major Laws. The first being the use of decimal places (2001 )instead of fraction. Years later and after they lobbied for the removal of the Up Tick rule ( 2007 ) the secret software was designed and in place ready to go into full operation now that Wall Street was allowed to naked short sell millions upon millions of shares that Goldman Sachs and other hedge funds didn’t even own and failed to deliver. Their greed took over, who wouldn’t , when Goldman Sachs was making over $100 million a day in trading. They destroyed companies like Sirius XM radio and overstock.com and many others. Then they began naked shorting the banking industry and attacking each other.
This is the truth that the news media, corporate Amercia, the SEC, the Government, Goldman Sachs, Hank Paulson and the many others that were in power have not told the American people and the world. Now, as I write this letter, they are now trying to con the world into thinking it was insider trading that caused 95% of the middle class workers to lose 20% - 60 % of their investments and 401K’s.
In the end the Entire story will be told and I hope I get my chance to tell it. Check the facts. There was an arrest of that Goldman Sachs employee in July 2009. Why was it covered up? Where are the arrests for Naked Short Selling and Goldman Sachs use of their secret software that stole the wealth off investors all across the country. It will go down as the biggest scandal in history.
I give you permission to re-print this letter. Please follow up and investigate. This story needs to be told. Please contact me. It is exactly what is taken place.
Richard Keane
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11-09-2009 @ 6:53PM
diplobrat said...
Now if only Mr. Morlock would just go away, and take his empire with him, the world would be a much better place.
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11-09-2009 @ 9:07PM
bob said...
Yeah, the guys from Google are shaking in their boots. LOL.
Hey Rupert... you're 78! Leave the rest of the 21st century to those guys.... You've more than done your part to trash up the first part of it... How about letting someone WITHOUT their own agenda have a crack at it.... You and Roger Ailes are both due for dirt naps soon anyway... Step away from the vehicle Rupe.... step away.
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11-09-2009 @ 9:59PM
steve said...
Join me in Boycotting Burt Watson G.M in Freeland Michigan.
They use scam's to get people in there the ad's say you won but they don't have the prizes
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11-09-2009 @ 10:45PM
Fred said...
What size is your dress? Because you'll be wearing it!!!
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11-09-2009 @ 11:27PM
PissOnPaulson said...
Brilliant piece by Keane shown above..... and dead accurate.... mind boggling that none of this is ever discussed..... its so frigging painfully obvious that Goldman has been protected at never seen before in history level...... Goldman is directly responsible for nearly all of this meltdown, & nobody says a friggin' thing about...... friggin' in the riggin' !
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11-10-2009 @ 10:21AM
JD said...
To Richard Keane;
That is an accurate accounting of one of the issues regarding our economic woes. As a 17 year Wall St. veteran (1979-1995) I got to watch in horror as the 56 primary dealer credit market systematically shrank to under 20 primary dealers. Lead by Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Saloman Brothers, Bear Sterns, and Lehman Brothers, dealerships began swallowing one another whole! Chemical bank and Manufacturers Hanover were devoured by Chase who then jouned with JP Morgan. 4 significant competitors that were suddenly 1 "too big to fail" monopoly. Citibank swallowed Smith Barney and Saloman. And so on and so on. In an eye blink competition among 56 players was reduced to a kabal of under 20 super rich, super powerful, bank/brokerage house/insurance company/investment bank quilts that SHOULD be 4 unconnected businesses! (sound like AIG??) That happened in the late 80's, so this house of cards has been ready to tumble for decades.
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