Microsoft has reportedly held talks with News Corp that would see the world's biggest software company pay the newspaper publisher to remove its content from Google.
News Corp, led by Rupert Murdoch, started the discussions but Microsoft has since approached big online publishers about removing their articles from Google's search index, the Financial Times reported.
The move would likely be part of Microsoft's ambitions for Bing, the search engine it launched in June to rival Google. "This is all about Microsoft hurting Google's margins," the FT report cited someone familiar with it as saying.
Mr Murdoch has been vocal in his criticism of Google and its effect on the newspaper industry, and has said that content from his newspapers could be taken off Google’s search index. The company, whose titles range from the Sun newspaper in the UK to The Wall Street Journal, has already announced its intention to start charging readers for online content.
However, Google, the world's dominant search engine, has recently brushed off the economic damage a withdrawal of big publishers would do.
"Economically it's not a big part of how we generate revenue," Matt Brittin, Google's UK director, told a conference of editors.