Rupert Murdoch to block Google from indexing news stories from his media empire

Rupert Murdoch, chairman and managing director of News Corporation, plans to block Google from indexing stories from newspapers in his media empire, including the Sun, the Times and the Wall Street Journal, once they had enacted plans to charge people for reading their stories on the web. The move is aimed at encouraging people to pay for content online.

While commenting on the value of search traffic to news websites, Murdoch recently told Sky News Australia, “What's the point of having someone come occasionally? They are not going to become loyal readers. [We can say] hey, we have got this many millions of visitors, you would better advertise. The fact is there isn't enough advertising in the world to go around and make all the websites profitable. We would rather have fewer people coming to our website and paying.” [Source: Guardian, PCPro]