News can be removed from results: Google

• Source: Global Times
• [01:21 November 11 2009]
• Comments

In response to threats by Rupert Murdoch to ban the search engine from listing content from his news empire, Google said Tuesday that any company could ask to have stories taken out of search results.

"That's Google, that's Microsoft, that's ask.com, a whole lot of people ... they shouldn't have had it free all the time, and I think we've been asleep," Murdoch told Sky News in a weekend interview.

Specifically, Murdoch accused Google of stealing stories from News Corp newspapers for the Google News service, and said he might ban them once he introduces charges for the papers' online editions.

Google said it was up to individual news organizations to decide whether they wanted their stories listed on Google News, and there were "simple technical standards" that would remove them if they wished.

"News organizations are in complete control over whether and how much of their content appears in search results," Google said in a statement issued in London.

"Publishers put their content on the Web because they want it to be found, so very few choose not to include their material in Google News and Web search. But if they tell us not to include it, we don't."

"If publishers want their content to be removed from Google News specifically, all they need to do is tell us," the statement added.

Google said its news listings service and Web searches were a "tremendous source of promotion" for news organizations, sending them "about 100,000 clicks every minute."