The New York Times announced that its new paywall will limit links from all search engines, not just Google.
Last week, the Times said that it would limit referring links from Google, but apparently Times managers changed their minds, according to TechCrunch, and now extends the limitation to "all major search engines." The Times will launch its paywall on March 28.
However, the Times declined to get specific on what a "major search engine" was. (In addition, the Nieman Journalism Lab reported that four lines of Javascript will defeat the Times paywall. While apparently the Times doesn't care that hackers will find a cheat, it does care that the paywall may be breached by regular people who would otherwise pay.)
Obviously the move to include other search engines was made so that the Times seems fair and objective, rather than singling out Google as the reason for its loss of revenue. The move will also stop hurting one search engine while helping another. So far, though, it appears the $50 million paywall may prove more difficult to implement than its managers initially thought.
