Bonum Certa Men Certa

Confirmed: Murdoch Waves Goodbye to Google in Order to Please Ballmer

Rupert Murdoch
Picture by Zil



Summary: Microsoft and Murdoch are said to be engaging in talks while Murdoch is badmouthing Google using ridiculous claims

MURDOCH'S LATEST mischiefs with Microsoft are a subject that we covered in:



What ever happened to the "new Microsoft"? Are Microsoft's critics just irrational "Microsoft haters", or is it possible that there is something inherently wrong with Microsoft's behaviour? We wrote about this question last week [1, 2].

To present some of the latest news and developments, here is confirmation that Microsoft and Murdoch are talking.

The push by News International to get Mainstream media to de-list from Google is the latest and most public salvo in this war but it won't be the last. The Mainstream media is hurting badly, and - given the alternatives are pretty bleak - one option is to force Google to hand some of the surplus back by taking away their bat and ball elsewhere, reducing Google to search the "Long Tail of Crap" that is the rest of the Web (as far as the mainstream market is concerned, anyway). In fact, the latest twist in the tale, that Microsoft and News International are reaching a pact to delist from Google and go exclusively elsewhere, also illustrates the second trend...


John Dvorak calls it "an ugly rumor," but he also dismisses Microsoft's motives and method.

It's an ugly rumor. There's no way Microsoft would resort to bribing Web sites to get delisted from Google, is there? I mean, aside from the restraint of trade issues and the callback to the tribulations the company went through with its dirty Internet Explorer tricks, Microsoft has learned to compete fairly, right? Not so, according to the reports stemming from a Financial Times article, which highlights the company's desire to team-up with Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., in order to screw Google.

This whole thing began when Murdoch began to complain that Google was "stealing" News Corp. content. He demanded that the company pay a pittance or he would pull the plug, preventing Google from spidering its sites. Google searches provide between 25 and 50 percent of the page views of just about any site. This includes blogs, newspapers, everything. Would Murdoch throw away 25 to 50 percent of his sites' revenue just to spite Google? Yeah, right.


The Guardian explains why Google's service cannot be compared to "theft" or "stealing".

The emancipatory potential of the free dissemination of intellectual property through infinite replication is overwhelming. Unlike private property that is subject to scarcity, supply and demand laws and other rigid determinations, immaterial property poses an explosive threat to our deeply rooted notions of proprietorship.

It is not only because there can be potentially infinite owners of property that the internet redefines our notion of it. It is also that people who participate in the exchange of immaterial works do not treat them as property. When they exchange music, books or movies, they are not merely transferring ownership from themselves to others; they simply do not recognise themselves as owners in the first place.


The BBC publicly rejects Murdoch's stance and Glyn Moody adds: "oh, bad luck, Rupert [Murdoch], that's your little plan scuppered..."

Moody also writes in a standalone post:

Poor Mr Murdoch, bless his cotton socks, is still thinking in terms of command and control - with him doing both; the Internet doesn't quite work like that - despite the best efforts of repressive governments around the world (I'm looking at *you*, Gordon).


That's a reference to Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

More Information About Public Talks That Richard Stallman Gave This Week in Europe
Two talks in Switzerland
SoylentNews Grows Up, Registers as a Business, Site Traffic Reportedly Grows
More people realise that social control media may in fact be a passing fad
 
Links 29/03/2024: Fentanylware (TikTok) Fines and UK High Court Makes It Seem OK to Assassinate People Wrongly (Falsely) Associated With "Russia"
Links for the day
Garden Season Starts Today
Outdoor time, officially...
Engadget is Still a Spamfarm, It's Just an Amazon Catalogue (SPAM/SEO), a Sea of Junk Disguised as "Articles" With Few 'Fillers' (Real Articles) in Between
Engadget writes for bots now, not for humans
Richard Stallman's Talks in Switzerland This Week
We need to put an end to 'cancer culture'; it's trying to kill people and it is even swatting people
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 28, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, March 28, 2024
[Meme] EPO's New Ways of Working (NWoW), a.k.a. You Don't Even Get a Desk at Work and Cannot be Near Known Colleagues
Seems more like union-busting (divide and rule)
Hiding Microsoft's Culpability in Security Breaches and Other Major Blunders (in the United Kingdom, This May Mean You Can't Get Food)
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is vast
Giving back to the community
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 28/03/2024: Sega, Nintendo, and Bell Layoffs
Links for the day
Open letter to the ACM regarding Codes of Conduct impersonating the Code of Ethics
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
With 9 Mentions of Azure In Its Latest Blog Post, Canonical is Again Promoting Microsoft and Intel Vendor Lock-in, Surveillance, Back Doors, Considerable Power Waste, and Defects That Cannot be Fixed
Microsoft did not even have to buy Canonical (for Canonical to act like it happened)
Links 28/03/2024: GAFAM Replacing Full-Time Workers With Interns Now
Links for the day
Consent & Debian's illegitimate constitution
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The Time Our Server Host Died in a Car Accident
If Debian has internal problems, then they need to be illuminated and then tackled, at the very least in order to ensure we do not end up with "Deadian"
China's New 'IT' Rules Are a Massive Headache for Microsoft
On the issue of China we're neutral except when it comes to human rights issues
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 27, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 27, 2024
WeMakeFedora.org: harassment decision, victory for volunteers and Fedora Foundations
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 27/03/2024: Terrorism Grows in Africa, Unemployment in Finland Rose Sharply in a Year, Chinese Aggression Escalates
Links for the day
Links 27/03/2024: Ericsson and Tencent Layoffs
Links for the day
Amid Online Reports of XBox Sales Collapsing, Mass Layoffs in More Teams, and Windows Making Things Worse (Admission of Losses, Rumours About XBox Canceled as a Hardware Unit)...
Windows has loads of issues, also as a gaming platform
Links 27/03/2024: BBC Resorts to CG Cruft, Akamai Blocking Blunders in Piracy Shield
Links for the day
Android Approaches 90% of the Operating Systems Market in Chad (Windows Down From 99.5% 15 Years Ago to Just 2.5% Right Now)
Windows is down to about 2% on the Web-connected client side as measured by statCounter
Sainsbury's: Let Them Eat Yoghurts (and Microsoft Downtimes When They Need Proper Food)
a social control media 'scandal' this week
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 26, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Windows/Client at Microsoft Falling Sharply (Well Over 10% Decline Every Quarter), So For His Next Trick the Ponzi in Chief Merges Units, Spices Everything Up With "AI"
Hiding the steep decline of Windows/Client at Microsoft?
Free technology in housing and construction
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
We Need Open Standards With Free Software Implementations, Not "Interoperability" Alone
Sadly we're confronting misguided managers and a bunch of clowns trying to herd us all - sometimes without consent - into "clown computing"
Microsoft's Collapse in the Web Server Space Continued This Month
Microsoft is the "2%", just like Windows in some countries