Google treated like scapegoat, chief executive accuses

Google chief executive Eric Schmidt has said the company is being used as a scapegoat by newspaper publishers, but maintains the internet giant will help them gain revenue.

“With dwindling revenue and diminished resources, frustrated newspaper executives are looking for someone to blame,” Schmidt said in a column published in The Wall Street Journal.

“Much of their anger is currently directed at Google, whom many executives view as getting all the benefit from the business relationship without giving much in return,” Schmidt said. “The facts, I believe, suggest otherwise.”

News Corp chief executive Rupert Murdoch has attacked Google for “stealing” stories without contributing any advertising revenue, and has threatened Google with removing the company’s news stories from its search results.

“We send online news publishers a billion clicks a month from Google News and more than three billion extra visits from our other services, such as Web Search and iGoogle,” Schmidt said. “That is 100,000 opportunities a minute to win loyal readers and generate revenue – for free.”

“In terms of copyright, another bone of contention, we only show a headline and a couple of lines from each story,” he said. “If readers want to read on they have to click through to the newspaper’s website.”