News Corporation and their subsidiaries along with the Denver Post and the Dallas Morning News might be pulling their stories from the Google search engine very soon. Microsoft is rumored to be in talks with News Corporation to partner on a deal that will add the stories into the Bing search engine and news website. The Denver Post, the Dallas Morning News, and The Wall Street Journal would charge for content and remove it from Google News.

Rupert Murdoch was interviewed recently on Sky News and he claimed Google was stealing content from his company. MediaNews Group Inc. CEO William Dean Singleton said that the Denver Post will block Google News when the Denver Post starts charging.

“There’s value in that traffic and I think publishers recognize that value,” stated Google News Head Josh Cohen. “The reason they’re not opting out is they’re getting something from that relationship.”

Yesterday Google announced that they will be placing ads on Google News’ search results in the U.S.  This means if you search for keywords such as the iPhone or the Kindle, you will notice results for sponsored links from websites such as BlackBerry.com, att.com, Amazon.com, and SonyStyle.com.

“We’ve always said that we’d unveil these changes when we could offer a good experience for our users, publishers and advertisers alike, and we’ll continue to look at ways to deliver ads that are relevant for users and good for publishers, too,” stated Josh Cohen on the Google News Blog.

Google was debating whether to put ads on news.google.com for about 6 years.  They were skeptical before because of criticism from newspaper publishers.  Content from Google News is aggregated from various blogs and online newspapers.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has reiterated that the search engine company is a friend of newspaper publishers.  Google’s own Adwords and AdSense business depends on newspaper publishers and other content publishers.

“When Eric Schmidt says he worries about the newspaper industry, it’s crocodile tears,” stated Brian Tierney CEO of the parent company for The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Philadelphia Daily News.

William Dean Singleton, CEO of MediaNews Group has a difference of opinion with Tierney.  MediaNews is the parent company of about 54 daily newspapers including the San Jose Mercury NEws and The Denver Post.  He says that newspaper companies don’t have to let Google take content, but opt to do so because it drives traffic.

Reuters says that they will be watching Google News closely as they don’t have any licensing agreement with them.  “We are certainly not surprised by the move, which places Google News in a position to compete with news publishers — giving us cause for concern,” stated Alisa Bowen, SVP for Reuters.

[via New York Times]