Of late, Google has found it very difficult to be in the vicinity of an agreement with people from the publishing industry. The trend persisted on Thursday, when Google CEO Eric Schmidt again spurned Rupert Murdoch’s stated plan to begin charging for all online content owned by News Corp. He believes that it is highly unlikely that internet users will be willing to pay for accessing general news items on the internet given the nimiety of free news sources on the internet.

"In general these models have not worked for general public consumption because there are enough free sources that the marginal value of paying is not justified based on the incremental value of quantity. So my guess is for niche and specialist markets ... it will be possible to do it but I think it is unlikely that you will be able to do it for all news," Schmidt said while addressing the Royal Televison Society Convention in Cambridge, England, via video link. Media mogul Rupert Murdoch had said in August that News Corp. websites may become paid by the middle of next year.

Image Credit: The Age