3 ms·
If selling their content to search engines can save the newspapers then maybe it's not such a bad thing. Search engines have always enjoyed a free ride, which w
by dkasper 17y ago
If selling their content to search engines can save the newspapers then maybe it's not such a bad thing. Search engines have always enjoyed a free ride, which was probably a good thing in the beginning. But at this point I don't see how search engines having to pay for their content is going to cause the apocalypse some are predicting. If search engines don't want to pay for the content then then content isn't as valuable as Fox and others think it is. If content producers think they can get away with not being listed in a major search engine then they should be allowed to. More than likely both parties can come to terms.
- vaporstun 17y agoI agree this is fair if everyone has a fair chance to index that content for an equal price. If any search engine were allowed to index Fox's content (or any other site of course) for an equal fee then this is fair. It is fair and just for content creators to get paid. However if, as the article suggests, there is exclusivity and a case where Bing is allowed to index it and Google is not given a fair chance at such, this could run afoul of antitrust laws. As I mentioned in a sub-comment below, exclusivity like this is inherently anti-competitive which has a high likelihood to be found in violation of antitrust. (Example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pictures,_Inc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pict...)
- erikwiffin 17y agoThis could end up leading to the rise of "black hat" search engines. Search engines that don't bother with trivial details like "robots.txt".