To paraphrase XKCD, someone not on the internet is wrong.
Exhibit A: Rupert Murdoch wants to stop Google indexing newspaper content, asking Should we be allowing Google to steal all our copyrights?
As Danny Sullivan points out, Mr. Murdoch could save himself a crusade by simply writing a robots.txt file.
Exhibit B: Some hack in The Guardian puts paid to the myth that newspapers publish “quality content” by writing a screed entitled Google is just an amoral menace. The problem here seems to be that Google is too powerful for its own good because it does a great of job of aggregating content and making it easy to find. This problem statement is so absurd that even other journalists can see it’s wrong.
Whenever I see stalwarts of a dying business model rail against Google in this way, I can’t help but think that what they’re really angry with is the web itself.
I would argue that they could spend their time more constructively, reading Clay Shirky or listening to Steven Johnson. But then, as Kevin says:
Never argue with anyone who buys ink by the barrel. They tend not to be any good at debate.
Update: It gets better. The editor of the Wall Street Journal calls Google parasites or tech tapeworms in the intestines of the internet.
Read the article and then read this twist on it.
At least all of this nonsense shows that the newspaper industry has moved from “denial” to “anger”. They just need to get through “bargaining” and “depression” before they finally reach “acceptance”.