Google CEO: Not Buying Newspapers
Speaking with the Financial Times, Schmidt admitted that his company had considered throwing its hat into the newspaper ring. Ultimately, the company demurred on any type of purchase, deciding it wouldn't be right to cross the line between the content newspapers provide and the technology that Google brings to the table.
Schmidt told the Financial Times that there is a line and "we're trying to stay on our side of it."
The CEO of the search engine company went on to discuss a number of different ways that newspaper content is read and distributed on the Web. When the discussing the topic of subscription based content or micropayment, Schmidt said that business model could work for some cases, but ultimately would fail when it came to general news reporting, such as political coverage.
Schmidt also pointed out that his company was working with content providers to help drive traffic to their Websites through Google News. And, rather than sharing revenue with The Washington Post, for example, Google News provides value for the paper by driving traffic to the Post's Website.
According to Schmidt, the reason Google News doesn't share revenue with its content partners is simply because "we're not monetizing it in aggregate." To pay a newspaper company for collecting its content on Google News, according to Schmidt, would be like taking money from something "unrelated to newspapers and just paying them."