There's no such thing as a lopsided game of chicken. Google's aim is to index all the world's information. Media companies aim to be paid for producing it. If the search market were competitive, then normal commercial negotiations would establish some sort of quid pro quo for the exchange. But because search is not – Google is responsible for answering about 70 per cent of search queries – the company has been able to free-ride the internet's content without blinking. Threats to freeze out the search engine will not change those underlying economics.
If negotiations between Rupert Murdoch's News Corp and Microsoft resulted in an exclusive deal with Bing, an alliance would make little long term difference to the media landscape. Microsoft has poured money into its online division for years without profit. It cannot afford to fund the newspaper industry indefinitely. Its search market share of 10 per cent is too small to force Google to change its behaviour.
An industry-wide boycott of Google is also a non-starter – the BBC for one is committed to seeking the widest audience. The underlying problem for newspapers remains the transition from print to online, where advertising rates are lower and news is commoditised. News aggregation by search engines is a symptom of this shift, not its cause.