Microsoft has reportedly offered to pay for exclusive internet access to the news content of media giant News Corporation, in a move that could signal the end of free news on the internet.
If the offer were accepted, News would be paid to take its material off the Google search engine and put it on Microsoft's own new service, Bing.
Bing would then be the place to go for news - and Google would have to start paying if it wanted to retain that kind of content.
The BBC reports that the move comes against the background of News head Rupert Murdoch's campaign to start getting people to pay for the online content of his newspapers.
Mr Murdoch has also made it clear that Google - and indeed the BBC - are two major obstacles to this campaign, because they are both major ways to get free news.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is anxious to do two things - to give Bing a big push, and to get in on Google's profit margins.
