Microsoft to News Corp:Ditch Google

This is going to be interesting. Will we see a bidding war erupt between search engines to exclusively carry content from specific sites?

Microsoft has had discussions with News Corp over a plan that would result in News Corp being paid to “de-index” its news websites from Google, setting the scene for a search engine battle that could offer a ray of light to the newspaper industry, reports FT.

FT goes on to say that it:

has learnt that Microsoft has also approached other big online publishers to persuade them to remove their sites from Google’s search engine...One website publisher approached by Microsoft said that the plan “puts enormous value on content if search engines are prepared to pay us to index with them”.

This is simply a fascinating case of a new business model arriving out of the blue. Are beaten down newspaper stocks a buy?