Facing criticism from News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch that it unfairly profits from news content, Google is closing a loophole that has allowed readers to get articles on subscription-based sites—including News Corp.'s Wall Street Journal—without paying for them. Just days after Murdoch threatened to block his newspapers' content from the search engine, Google announced that it would let publishers limit non-subscribers to five free articles per day. Did Murdoch beat Google? (Watch a Reuters report about Google ceding to Rupert Murdoch)
Google knows Murdoch's right: Rupert Murdoch may be the one screaming that Google is stealing journalists' work, says Hamilton Nolan in Gawker, but other media moguls are grumbling the same thing "under their breath." And this concession suggest that Google thinks they have "a point." You have to admit -- Rupert Murdoch "gets results."
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Google and Murdoch aren't enemies: Google isn't stealing from newspapers, says Google CEO Eric Schmidt in The Wall Street Journal. Only a tiny portion of Google's income comes from ads connected to news searches. If anything, Google can help Rupert Murdoch and other newspaper owners find a business model that works in the Internet age by making it easier for people to find and read more news content.
"How Google can help newspapers"
"Google to limit readers to five daily stories from pay publications"
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