Microsoft plots to divide search results and content for users of the Internet. This is Bad! --->

[onehandle]

Maybe Bush was right. Will there be 'Internets?'
___________________________________

News Corp and Microsoft Plot Anti-Google Pact, Says Report

News Corp. and Microsoft are reportedly in "early stage talks" to cut an exclusive deal that would prevent Google from indexing the media conglomerate's news Websites some of which include The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post and others. The deal will allegedly give Microsoft's Bing search engine the exclusive rights to deliver search results and news pages with New Corp. content, according to The Financial Times . The report also says that Microsoft has approached other unnamed major Web publishers to cut similar deals.

snip...

Exclusivity Cripples the Web. This is perhaps the most serious implication of a possible deal between Bing and News Corp. Imagine if an agreement like this starts a trend among major content producers? The end result would be a mess for users like you and me. Looking for information about News Corp content like Fox television and movies? You'll only find it on Bing. Universal movie trailers? AOL. Baseball scores? Google.

Who wants a future like that? You'd need a roadmap just to remember which content was available on which search engine. Two solutions would inevitably crop up in this scenario: the search engines would start indexing each other (something they already do), which would mean Google users would resort to searches like "The Wall Street Journal site:Bing.com."

http://www.pcworld.com/article/182849/News_Corp_and_Microsoft_Plot_Anti_Google_Pact_Says_Report.html

[ixion]

1. It doesn't cripple the web, it makes News Corp and M$ lame

which is nothing new.

All they do by removing themselves from google indexing is lower the exposure of their site.

And BOING (yes, I know it's Bing) is a failure out-of-the-box. Yet another low hurdle for M$.

[onehandle]

4. According to the article, Microsoft is approaching others for similar deals.

I want the Justice Department to watch this carefully.

[arcadian]

7. I liked the old maps.live

bing.maps sucks, it's the same except with the Bing logo, which i don't really like. I wish Google Maps had a birdseye perspective, then I wouldn't even use Bing.

[dbonds]

2. Don't buy ANYTHING from Microsoft again, ever.

There is Mac, and Linux, and coming next year the new Google Chrome OS. There are online free versions of all the office products. Games are about the only thing you can't find a Non MS solution for, but more and more games can be played under Wine.

Microsoft has always been this way. Remember in the 90s when they were almost broke up, but Bush came into office and saved their ass.

[SpiralHawk]

3. Have a nice bowl of mutant GMO chem-soaked food-product to help you digest this news

Bill Gates intends to use the classique divide-and-conquer strategery to gain a death grip on our gasping, bifucated planet using bloatware and mutant GMO food-product facsimile rations to silence the proles.

[anigbrowl]

5. No it isn't

It's no worse than competing portals with exclusive news. Content owners can license it as they see fit.

[KansDem]

6. More "Attack of the Middlemen"

It has become apparent that power-brokers have been steadily trying to tie in all of our daily actions and activities into a kind of capitalist filter. From private prisons to health care, from education to information, we are increasingly being denied access to the original source in lieu of having to go through a middlemen and consequently their fees.

Once the free-flow of information is thwarted, we will return to corporate-pawn status as we will be fed what they want us to know and when.

Just imagine what the world would be like if the internet wasn't around during the Coup of 2000...

[Esra Star]

8. Is there an alternative way

to pay the Woodward and Bernsteins of the world?

If we want them to exist they will need financial encouragement.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

11. A People's Press

with a cheap as hell subscription fee that would draw gazillions and the best writers and journalists work for it and get paid better than they ever got from their parsimonious about-to-go-out-of-business-because-all-we-do-is-sling-bs former media boss.

If Google is smart, and they are, they will counter and check this move, probably with something far more attractive to the masses.

I actually have not been too happy with my Google searches of late - they have not been coming up with the relevant articles I am looking for even though I am clearly providing enough for the results I am looking for.

[Esra Star]

14. I look forward to seeing what models are tried.

I guess it will be Google that will create the first working model though.
Interesting times.

[Gman]

9. How very Microsoft of them

go behind everyone's backs and cut their legs out. From IBM to Netscape to Google: they haven't changed and they won't change no matter how many lawsuits they lose or how many restraining orders they receive.

Microsoft knows full well they cannot win to the degree they want to win if they play on a level playing field.

[tavalon]

19. Netscape revamped as firefox

and google is too big to notice Microsoft. It is only in Microsoft's ineffectual middle management suckup land that Microsoft is the leader in anything. Almost all of us refused to use their Vista piece of crap and so it will be with Ping.

[Xithras]

10. Microsoft is flailing wildly to save their Bing failure

Bing had a great start, but has been steadily bleeding off users ever since. Bing is Microsoft's third attempt at building a major search engine, and by far their most expensive, so they don't want to see it fail.

Since Microsoft is once again failing to beat the competition through better technology, they're falling back on their tried and true formula: Exclusivity, bundling, and monopoly.

[onehandle]

21. Exactly. nt

[Lance_Boyle]

12. Murdoch is cutting of his nose to spite his ugly-ass face here.

Make Newcorp content unavailable outside the walled garden? That worked out real well for AOL, didn't it? Contracting MS to aid in the effort is funny. MS desperately wants to promote Bing. Maybe they don't realize that Newscorpse content is not so valuable as to really be helpful to them in this effort.

[Duer 157099]

20. Exactly the same phrase that came to my mind

I say to them: go for it!

LOL

[SpiralHawk]

22. Make Newscorp irrelevant! Grand idea

America don't need no more of their steenkin propaganda.

[ohheckyeah]

13. I think Bing is a pretty good search engine.

I was doing a search for Hillary Clinton book signings and Bing gave me relevant results right away. Not so much with Google. I had to go through result after result of Sarah Palin book signings.

[The Straight Story]

15. It won't work. Someone will design a search engine to get results from them all

in one simple place (similar to some engines that do so now).

[no limit]

16. Let them do it. No better way to cut off millions of daily users from news corp

MSN is used by a very tiny percentage of the internet population. Backing out of google is one of the dumbest moves news corp can make; let them hang themselves.

[smiley_glad_hands]

17. this plan will only slow google down.

Murdoch will lose more traffic than he gains. Microsoft is going to have to pay for the license. Sounds like a bad business model by a crotchety old man who doesnt understand the internet and a company with a lot of cash to burn.

[tavalon]

18. Well since I use firefox and never ever use the Bing search engine

my experience won't change. I don't care about newscorp, Faux or even the New York Times. When NYT started charging for their site, I quit reading them. This is a case of foot meet bullet, IMO.

[951-Riverside]

23. Remember when news papers used to charge for access to their articles or....

remember when they used to force people to login to view an article.

Yeah, That didnt work out so good for them.