Bing Tries To Buy The News

By +Frank B.
in Back Page News

 Share

Recommended Posts

Grand Master

+Frank B. Subscriber²

Posted
  • Subscriber²
Posted

Bing Tries To Buy The News

Rupert Murdoch is pointing a gun to Google's head, and Microsoft is helping him pull back the trigger. For the past few weeks, Murdoch and his officers at News Corp. have been very vocal about their distaste for Google and their desire to lead other media companies in a boycott of sorts.

Murdoch keeps threatening to stop letting Google index the WSJ.com and his other media sites, and wants other news sites to join him in this self-imposed silence. The folks at Microsoft's Bing think this is a great idea. Not only that, but the FT reports that Microsoft is in fact in discussions with News Corp. and other publishers about the possibility of paying them to remove their sites from Google's search index. This report comes on the heels of a meeting in Europe where Bing dangled the prospect of premium spots in search results to publishers and outright money for search R&D.

Microsoft is not afraid to buy search market share, which is what it's doing with the Yahoo search deal and even its Cashback program. But with these latest talks, it is literally trying to buy the news, or at least exclusive access to the news.

Bing can't buy all the news, it can only buy certain brands. If Bing can somehow become the only place you can find news results and working links to the Wall Street Journal and other top papers such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the LA Times, for instance, that would be a big reason to switch for a lot of folks. But it's not clear how much Bing would have to pay the news companies of the world for them to give up all the traffic Google sends them in return for a fraction of that traffic and some cash.

Even Google couldn't afford to strike such deals. Says Murdoch, of Google, "If they were to pay everybody for everything they took from every newspaper in the world, and every magazine, they wouldn't have any profits left."

In order to actually make a dent in Google's market share, Bing would have to pay such exorbitant sums to so many different news companies that it would be difficult to recoup its investment. Bing certainly get some marketing buzz out of any such move, but that's about it.

The big problem with a search engine trying to buy market share by buying parts of the news is that information spreads so quickly these days, exclusives last about 30 seconds. That information will end up on a site that is indexed by Google. Or the same news will be broken by someone else on the Web before the WSJ.com even gets to it.

Exclusive indexing goes against the Web's inherent openness. Companies that try to curtail that openness don't last long on the Web.

souricon.gif News source: The Washington Post

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/848350-bing-tries-to-buy-the-news/
Share on other sites
Veteran

bob_c_b

Posted
Posted

Disregarding the fact this just sound impractical, I don't believe it. I don't really believe MS is offering cash for better search positioning and to pay off news sites to block Google. They have done some dumb stuff, but this kind of this is too obvious and they are still under oversite of several review boards and numerous lawyers. I think they are desperate to grow Bing's market, but I don't think they automatically switch to illegal tactics, but I do think it makes a great headline and drives traffic to the WP's site.

Veteran

toadeater

Posted
Posted
I can't see this going over well at all with the governments who already have Microsoft under scrutiny.

This seems to be a net neutrality issue of sorts. But I am not sure how illegal it is? There's no law that says you must allow Google to index you. However, I'm not sure that there is also any law that says Google must obey your wishes not be indexed. So I am not sure how MS intends to pull this off. Google can still legally link to the articles as long as it doesn't reprint the content.

This is making MS look very bad though. Steve Ballmer has no class.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

  • Posts

    • Dbrand thought they could get away with this Steam Machine case, Valve disagreed

      By PsYcHoKiLLa · Posted

      If Valve refused to let them make the case, I wonder if they've already partnered with someone else to do it? The fact that they didn't seek permission/licence before diving straight in is incredible though
    • Google pitches Spanner as one database for all AI agents with these new featues

      By Stup0t · Posted

      All your data's belong to us.
    • OpenClaw now has native mobile apps on iOS and Android

      By Karthik Mudaliar · Posted

      OpenClaw now has native mobile apps on iOS and Android by Karthik Mudaliar OpenClaw, the viral open-source personal AI agent, now has its own mobile app, available on both Android and iOS. Users can pair the app with an existing OpenClaw gateway and can start using new mobile-native features that are now available on the app. The app supports all the existing features you'd already have seen on OpenClaw's TUI, as well as some more, such as real-time and background Talk mode, action approvals, sharing from iOS, and optional access to device capabilities such as camera, screen, location, photos, contacts, calendar, and reminders. These features are available on both the Android and iOS versions of the app. What's important with these apps is that they don't run OpenClaw on your phone, but are actually just companion apps that require a running OpenClaw Gateway on an existing device, on macOS, Linux, or Windows via WSL2. To pair the app with your existing OpenClaw gateway, users need to run the command "/pair qr" on the TUI or existing chat interface, which brings up a QR code. Users can then scan this QR code to pair it up with the mobile app. There's also an option to manually pair the app by entering the host and a port. Previously, OpenClaw had been available on phones via WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Discord, Microsoft Teams, Matrix, and others. Now, with a native mobile app, the interface is much cleaner and more focused on just the OpenClaw, of course, with the added support for camera, screen, location, and more. It's important to note that OpenClaw comes with its own security warnings. There's always a chance of prompt injection with these tools, so users are recommended to double-check authentication, tool policy, sandboxing, and execution approvals rather than prompts alone. For users well-versed with the AI harness, a native mobile app makes it easier to approve an automation, share a link, use voice, or let an agent react to phone-side context.
    • Google pitches Spanner as one database for all AI agents with these new featues

      By Karthik Mudaliar · Posted

      Google pitches Spanner as one database for all AI agents with these new featues by Karthik Mudaliar Google Cloud is introducing new features within Spanner, its distributed database, as a place where enterprises should keep their data, using which AI agents could make smarter and better decisions. In a detailed blog post, Google highlighted quite a few features coming to Spanner, including relational data, graph relationships, vector search, key-value access, full-text search, and operational analytics together in one database architecture. Google says that today's systems aren't well-made for AI agents. There could be data that is present in one system, search indexes in another, embeddings in a vector database, and relationship data in a graph database. This fragmentation isn't great for AI agents to do their jobs because they don't have access to all of this data in one place. This is where Google is positioning Spanner as a solution. Spanner is already a globally distributed relational database with strong consistency, and Google wants its customers to see it as a broader data layer for AI applications. The company introduced something called Spanner Graph, along with integrated vector search, full-text search, a Cassandra-compatible key-value endpoint, and a columnar engine for analytical queries on operational data. Google also added that its ScaNN-powered vector search can support indexes with more than 10 billion vectors, while the columnar engine can make some analytical scans up to 200 times faster. All of this isn't just exclusive to the Google Cloud Platform, and there's support for multi-cloud as well. This comes via Spanner Omni, which Google says is a downloadable, containerized version of Spanner that can run on Kubernetes and in environments outside Google Cloud, including Microsoft Azure and AWS, and even on-premises infrastructure as well as edge deployments. Google says that customers who are interested in the full-featured edition should contact the company, and there's no word on commercial availability or separate pricing. Those interested can read the full blog by Google Cloud, which details these features individually.
    • Kalmuri 4.2.5

      By Copernic · Posted

      Kalmuri 4.2.5 by Razvan Serea Kalmuri is your all-in-one, portable screen capture and recording solution designed for speed, simplicity, and flexibility. Whether you need a full-screen snapshot, a custom area, a scrolling webpage, or smooth video recording, Kalmuri delivers with ease. Capture text instantly from images with built-in OCR, keep floating images on top for quick reference, and use the precise color picker for perfect design matching. Customize hotkeys to work your way and share results instantly with built-in upload options. Kalmuri runs without installation, making it ideal for USB use, and offers an intuitive interface that’s easy to learn. Kalmuri key features: Video recording support (designation of whole screen and area) Whole screen, active program, window control, area application Extract text from images using optical character recognition (OCR). Support for PNG, JPG, WEBP, BMP, GIF file formats MP4 video recording powered by FFmpeg for high-quality results Full web page capture Share the captured image on the web Color extraction function Printer output Hotkey settings Adjustable via keyboard for area capture (Arrow key, Ctrl+Arrow key, Shift+Arrow key) File name format (sequential, datetime) Free to use it at work, at home, in government offices, at school, etc. Using Kalmuri portable for video recording Kalmuri’s portable version doesn’t include FFmpeg, which is required for video recording. Without it, you’ll get an “error FFmpeg.exe not found” message. To fix this, download FFmpeg from the provided link, extract it, and place FFmpeg.exe in Kalmuri’s folder. Kalmuri will then recognize it automatically, allowing you to start recording in high quality instantly. Kalmuri 4.2.5 changelog: Fixed an intermittent crash when using Area Capture Improved stability for Area Capture and screen recording Resolved a capture issue that could occur right after startup Download: Kalmuri 4.2.5 | 24.2 MB (Freeware) Download: Kalmuri Portable 4.2.5 | 2.1 MB View: Kalmuri Website | Screenshot Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware

  • Recent Achievements

    • First Post
      rosiecharles earned a badge
      First Post
    • Reacting Well
      Juan Dela earned a badge
      Reacting Well
    • Week One Done
      Collagen Project earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Reacting Well
      Wakeen1966 earned a badge
      Reacting Well
    • Rookie
      Almohandis went up a rank
      Rookie

  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      516
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      273
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      143
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      98
    5. 5
      macoman
      54
    Show More

  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!