The companies have declined to comment, but the FT reports that Microsoft – which owns search engine Bing – has entered discussions with News Corp ‘over a plan that would involve the media company’s being paid to ‘de-index’ its news websites from Google’.
It reports:
“The impetus for the discussions came from News Corp, owner of newspapers ranging from the Wall Street Journal of the US to The Sun of the UK, said a person familiar with the situation, who warned that talks were at an early stage.
“However, the Financial Times has learnt that Microsoft has also approached other big online publishers to persuade them to remove their sites from Google’s search engine.”