Search Engines 'Content Kleptomaniacs'

Rupert Murdoch

By Martin Kelly, Editor, Search Engine Room

YET more harsh words – but little or no action – from media baron Rupert Murdoch and compatriot Tom Curley of Associated Press about “content kleptomaniacs” – aka search engines such as Google. "The aggregators and plagiarists will soon have to pay a price for the co-opting of our content,” Mr Murdoch told the World Media Summit in Beijing last week. He warned that unless publishers started charging for stories “it will be the content creators who pay the ultimate price and the content kleptomaniacs who triumph."

Interesting and aggressive but somewhat of an empty threat, I think. Whether online publishers like it or not, search engines probably do more good than harm, sending huge numbers of visitors to publisher websites, thereby allowing them to charge high advertising rates and make more money. Another point worth noting is the fact that irate publishers already have the power to stop search engines crawling their sites but most (as in 99.9%) don’t. Why? I think you know the answer. Search Engine Room, Octover 10, 2009