Alternately, I wonder if this move will hasten the newspaper's decline. If traditional newspapers/media remove themselves from the Google Index it creates a huge opportunity for new media outlets (huffingtonpost and other online verticals), smaller tier players, other intermediaries (bloggers and the like).

It's not like consumers are going to stop using Google for these types of searches overnight. And it's not like they won't continue to find great content (albeit not from "blue chip" outlets like WSJ, NYTimes, etc.). Combine that with the decline in relevance of traditional outlets wrt the younger generation (I imagine the same dynamic that makes Jon Stewart the most highly regarded news broadcaster in the U.S. also pertains to the < 30something regard for traditional media brands) and you have a pretty dismal outlook for old media made even more dismal by the outright ceding of their Google traffic (if it comes to pass).

But I guess we'll just have to wait and see how it all plays out. If you're a smaller, up-and-coming online media player though, you've got to be licking your chops.

It would't be the first time that microsoft used its cash to prolong the death of something in order to set it against a foe.

SCO definitely comes to mind here.

You can look forward to reporting on google and ms becoming serioudly skewed by this.