Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google, said the internet company had had talks with Rupert Murdoch and other newspaper proprietors about helping run subscription services for their online sites. Next month, the Times and Sunday Times UK titles are set to erect a paywall limiting access to their online news sites to paying customers. The papers will also withdraw their articles from Google’s search engine.
Now, however, it seems that Google could still have a role with news sites, perhaps getting them to use the Google Checkout service to help subscribers pay for content.
Mr Schmidt said he had a good relationship with Mr Murdoch, “outside of public posturing.”
“We have talked to Rupert [Murdoch] and quite a few others. I think we currently have peace. We have talked to News Corp and other companies for a months on these sorts of things,” Mr Schmidt told journalists at Google’s Zeitgeist conference outside London.
“I would rather not talk about specific news on any deal. But we are a platform, not a competitor to newspapers. Today we have an advertising answer for them, but we would like to have other answers for them as well.”
Mr Schmidt said he believed online news sites would have a combination of revenue models, including advertising, subscriptions and micropayments.
– from FT.com