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Murdoch To Explore Blocking Google Searches
In another move sure to continue the certain doom looming over classic publications, Rupert Murdoch has elaborated on the direction he would take in an effort to monetize the content that his websites deliver by attempting to block much of Google's ability to scan and index his news sites. "Murdoch believes that search engines cannot legally use headlines and paragraphs of news stories as search results. 'There's a doctrine called "fair use," which we believe to be challenged in the courts and would bar it altogether,' Mr Murdoch told the TV channel. 'But we'll take that slowly.'"
Robots.txt?
Why does he not just use robots.txt, and then google will not scan or index his sites? He cannot have it both ways, being indexed and not allowing the search results to be displayed. This whole argument seems absurd.
you dumbass! All you have to do is deny /* or whatever and google won't index you. More likely, this is just posturing for a bribe - maybe it'd work better if he ran a news site.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
mmmm, update robots.txt and say good bye to your business.
Probably because information wants to be free, not had for a monthly payment.