News content from The Times and The Sun could soon be noticeably absent in online searches and news aggregators if News Corp's chairman and CEO, Rupert Murdoch, has is way.

Murdoch, not shy to speak out about how he feels Google has threatened the newspaper industry, has said he will consider removing his papers' content from Google's search index, possibly as early as next year.

"I think we will [remove our websites from Google's search index] but that's when we start charging", Murdoch told Sky News Australia, referring to the pay wall he is planning for online content.

"The people who simply just pick up everything and run with it – steal our stories, we say they steal our stories - they just take them. 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".

Meanwhile The FT reports Murdoch actually threatened to sue the likes of the BBC when asked about how he plans to charge for content when the same stories are covered by broadcasters such as the BBC and ABC.

"But we are better", said Murdoch. "And anyway, if you look at them, most of their stuff is stolen from the newspapers now, and we’ll be suing them for copyright".

Via: telegraph.co.uk

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