Last week, the Internet seemed aflame with rumored talks between News Corp. and Microsoft, wherein Redmond would pay the former to de-list The Wall Street Journal and other sites from Google in exchange for sweet cash. Subsequent articles have suggested that the initial reports were overblown, but the whole thing made me wonder: How well would such de-listing--or rather, exclusive listing on Bing--work out for Rupert Murdoch and Microsoft?

Not too well, if you believe some analysts. Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan thinks that a move of that type would cost the Journal close to a million readers daily, something that News Corp. would likely demand that Bing make up in direct payments. Meanwhile, Hitwise estimates that some 25 percent of the Journal's traffic comes courtesy of Google and Google News. Eliminate that, and traffic for News Corp.'s flagship probably spirals down the tubes--especially when you consider that Bing, the search engine on which it'd be visible, has yet to break double-digits in terms of U.S. search-engine market share.

So News Corp. would find itself in a bit of a bind, if it truly wanted to de-list from Google. But is there a way, at least hypothetically, for Microsoft and Murdoch to potentially succeed?

Sure...if other media companies, frustrated about all their content spreading across the Web for free, decided to join some sort of alliance. That is, if CNN and The New York Times and Reuters and Associated Press and The Washington Post and a host of other publications all decided to pull their content behind some sort of Exclusive Wall of Bing. But that will also be the moment that Elvis reappears to announce he's playing four concerts at Madison Square Garden; this is to say, not very likely to happen at all.

However, Google evidently sees a threat in the idea of publications pulling away from it; yesterday, the search-engine giant announced that it's giving more granular control to news organizations over what can--and cannot--be displayed on Google News, with its "First Click Free" program.

Under the auspices of the program, organizations (such as, theoretically, News Corp.) would be able to limit non-subscribers to five free articles a day, closing a gap that allowed determined types to read, say, the entire Wall Street Journal. Google will also start labeling certain stories as "subscription" in Google News. Google's official blog posting on the topic, with all the details of the program, can be found here.

At the same time, though, Google also seems to dare publishing companies to de-list from Google News entirely. In a Dec. 2 posting on the Google News Blog, senior business project manager Josh Cohen held up a "new Google News web crawler" that would allow publishers "to keep their content out of Google News and still remain in Google Search."

"Want to block images from Google News, but not from Web Search? Go ahead," Cohen wrote. "Want to include snippets in Google News, but not in Web Search? Feel free."

("Go ahead!" the crew up at Mountain View seems to be crying, "Dirty Harry"-style. "Make our day!")

If Microsoft (along with Murdoch, or any other news organization) truly want to make said day, then Bing needs to start encroaching on Google's market-share in a big way. Currently, Bing occupies roughly 9.6 percent of the U.S. search-engine market, at least according to a Nov. 11 research note by Experian Hitwise, while Google occupies 70.6 percent of the market. If Yahoo's search-engine market share is ported over to Bing with no attrition once Microsoft and Yahoo close their search-and-advertising deal in 2010, then Bing's market-share rises to 26.7 percent (using current numbers).

That 26.7 percent isn't enough to challenge the survival of an organization with 70.6 percent. News Corp. knows that, and News Corp. probably likes being listed on the world's largest search-engine's news and Web results, no matter how much noise Murdoch might make.

However, if Google does something catastrophically wrong to cause its market-share to dip precipitously, and if publishers like News Corp. somehow stay angry over Google's listings despite the search giant's latest announcements, and if Microsoft can figure out some sort of enticement to attract said publishers behind the Exclusive Wall of Bing... well, then this whole "de-listing from Google" concept being bandied about might actually have some weight.

But that's a lot of "ifs."

And Elvis isn't exactly in shape to belt out "Jailhouse Rock" anytime soon.