My Open Letter to the Associated Press - WTF

Now before I start ranting against the Associated Press' latest threats against search engines and other news aggregators let me say this; I can understand their need for an additional income stream. I agree that the newspaper industry needs to look closely at where its readership comes from and how those readers are drawn to their websites. I also understand their grab at any straw that they can find. I would link to the article I found but I don't want a lawsuit. Instead just search for "A.P. Seeks to Rein in Sites Using Its Content"

Now for my rant:
There is a big difference in cutting off an illegal supplier of traffic and one that is a major and legal (at least according to Google) supplier of traffic. Something that the AP needs to think about is this: Does Google really need you, or are they supplying a service to you? No seriously I do not know the answer to this. I see Yahoo! as a more flagrant user of AP News on their Search page than Google. Having said this I am constant user of Yahoo! for my search needs and I have the occasion to click on the stories that they list on their news feed. Do people go to Google and Yahoo to get news or do they go there to search for news. Does Google now have to pay for everytime I search for Mt. Redoubt explosion and a news story comes up?

I am not sure if the major news organizations use Google Analytics but I am sure they know where the majority of their readers come from or where they are referred from. My experience with online advertising with newspaper comes from a local perspective and these were based solely on the number of impressions that my ad was served. How then does the AP and the newspapers not benefit from Google and Yahoo's news feeds? If it were not for those feeds I would have never added to their impression count and thus gave them the opportunity to charge more for their impression based advertising.

I fully admit that I am not fully aware of all the issues surrounding this move by the Associated Press but as a Search Marketer and a user of Search News Feeds, I stand by my opinion and will leave it at that, my opinion. If yours differs please leave a comment for discussion and give me the other side.