Murdoch v Google

Murdoch needs to think long and hard about how serious his attack on Google is… because at the moment he is, in effect, acquiescing in the “kleptomania and parasitism”, says Raymond Snoddy.

One of the most endearing characteristics of Rupert Murdoch is his almost compulsive talent for answering questions bluntly and honestly.

Those lucky enough to get close enough to the News Corporation chairman to ask questions usually get a straight answer on most topics, perhaps apart from sensitive family issues like who will succeed him.  It must be something to do with the Scottish Presbyterian genes.

For years journalists were virtually guaranteed a story by gathering around the great man and peppering him with questions at the end of BSkyB’s annual meeting in London. Then more recently the minders got a firmer grip on the situation and started shepherding him off the stage as quickly as possible.

Rupert Murdoch has been at it again this week with his incendiary interview in Australia in which Google was denounced as a parasite, amid references to kleptomania. News Corp stories around the world would be taken down from the Google story index and for good measure public service broadcasters such as the BBC and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation would be sued for breach of copyright if they persisted in lifting stories from his newspapers.

The venue was Sky News Australia – one of his own – and Murdoch was probably in a mood to send a message to the giant Google corporation. He must have known that it was inevitable that he would be asked about his plans to charge for his content and that any answer he made would be round the world in seconds.

The message was duly delivered but there were a number of curiosities.  Asked whether he would take News Corp material down from the Google indices Murdoch replied: “I think we will but that’s when we start charging.”

As Murdoch has already made clear News Corp is unlikely to meet its next year deadline to put most of its content behind charging walls. The scale and extent of the problems are considerable, not least the competition issues arising from any co-ordinated industry approach to the issue.

Then there is the BBC “problem” – the existence of an enormous free website, which will continue to provide an alternative news source for those who don’t want to pay for News Corp material. The presence of bbc.co.uk is explanation enough for this week’s threats of legal action against the BBC and August’s political attack on the Corporation by his son James at this year’s Media Guardian Edinburgh International Television Festival.

But the BBC is not alone. Rupert Murdoch’s charging problems are made much worse by the Guardian’s determination not to charge for its online content as a matter of principle. Whether the Guardian’s principles can continue to be funded without commercial compromise is another matter.

Google was quick to spot the flaw in Murdoch’s argument. It was a “tremendous source of promotion” for media groups such as News Corp. But if publishers want their content to be removed from Google News specifically “all they need to do is tell us”.

So far Murdoch has not told them to do any such thing, which means until deep into next year, and possibly beyond, he will, in effect, continue to acquiesce in the kleptomania and parasitism.

Presumably he wants to enjoy, as long as it suits his purpose, the promotion and any share of advertising revenue that accrues in the meantime.

On the very day that Murdoch was talking, Google symbolically shrugged off the attack by spending $750 million on AdMob, the California-based mobile advertising start-up. It was a further indication, if any were needed, just how serious the $174 billion online internet corporation takes its hopes of dominating the advertising market.

Murdoch and many other content owners – Michael Grade of ITV is another who has denounced the likes of Google as parasites – may find it difficult to respond to the Google threat.

But it’s not all one way traffic.

Despite having at least the emotional support of President Obama, Google appears to be running into heavy legal and regulatory weather in the US. There is concern about the sheer power and influence of the company which is spreading into various sectors. More specifically, the US Justice Department’s anti-trust section is investigating its plans to digitise books and the Federal Trade Commission has expressed concern over privacy issues and has started looking at the impact of behavioural advertising using the information Google has on us all.

So Rupert Murdoch may not have to battle against the multi-headed Google all on his own.

But he may have to make up his mind before long about how serious he is about his attack on the company – beyond answering questions honestly and bluntly.

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