Subscribe
Microsoft is in talks with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation to de-index every News Corp owned entity from Google and allow Bing, the new search engine owned by Microsoft, to become the only search engine for News Corp properties. This would mean that if you wanted to search for something on Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, or the New York Post, you would have to go to Bing, not Google. The same would apply to 20th Century Fox, Fox, Fox Sports, FX Networks, and a host of other entertainment and sports networks.
According to the Financial Times, News Corp isn’t the only media company approached by Microsoft to make Bing the exclusive search engine.
I cannot help but believe that this is a really stupid idea. Not just for News Corp, but for Microsoft too. A deal like this wouldn’t stop anyone from using Google to find News Corp related content. For instance, say Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck say something incredibly stupid on Fox News. If went to Google and performed a search of what they said, you might not find anything that directly links to Fox News, but you would still find a plethora of web content related to whatever Hannity or Beck said. Microsoft may pay News Corp money to de-link from Google, but that’s not going to stop bloggers and others from linking to News Corp entities.
These bloggers and others would simply move to the top of the Google search results.
A move like this would also hurt Bing’s credibility. I’m not sure being the official search engine of Fox News is anything to be proud of.
