Internet

Google to allow limit on free news content

Article published on the 2009-12-02 Latest update 2009-12-02 09:26 TU

News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch
(Photo: Reuters)

Google is to cut back plans for non-paying access to the world’s newspapers, after coming under fire from News Corps CEO Rupert Murdoch and other newspaper owners. The search engine giant says it will allow publishers to set a limit on the amount of free content available to readers.

Google says in a blog post that its “First Click Free” program will be altered so that publishers can limit readers to no more than five pages a day without subscribing.

Murdoch has criticised Google for its plans to index global news on its popular search engine. He claims that aggregating news online for no payment amounts to theft.

The global media owner has allegedly been in talks with software company Microsoft about making News Corps content available exclusively through its new search engine Bing.

At a two-day meeting hosted by the US's Federal Trade Commission, Murdoch said that news aggregators are “feeding off the hard earned efforts and investment of others.”

“In the future good journalism will depend on the ability of a news organisation to attract readers by providing news and information they’re willing to pay for,” he added. “Some critics say people won’t pay. I believe they will.”

Murdoch announced his plans to charge for all his newspapers online. The Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal already works on a paid subscription model.