I think it’s safe to assume Rupert Murdoch is a very smart man. He’s certainly an extremely wealthy man — he’s number 37 on Forbes’ list of the 400 richest Americans in 2009. As the executive who makes the big bucks for guiding News Corp., he’s used to making headlines (figuratively and literally).

Murdoch has called out Google on a number of occasions, claiming the search engine steals News Corp. content by displaying a news excerpt along with a link to News Corp. pages. Murdoch’s argument is that the excerpt may be enough to satisfy a reader, meaning that person won’t take the extra step to click on the link and visit the news source. Since most news companies rely on ad support to make money, fewer clicks means fewer dollars.

In a recent interview with Australia’s Sky News (below), Murdoch says that News Corp. is looking at ways to charge visitors to access content. This could include anything from news articles to video entertainment. Murdoch says that companies made mistakes with the Web and should never have offered content for free. He says that Web advertising doesn’t generate the revenue companies are looking for. Personally, I think that’s due to placing too much emphasis on advertising in traditional media rather than on the Web.

In addition, Murdoch says that the company may remove Google’s ability to link to their content. This isn’t hard to do. There is a file called robots.txt that anyone can include as part of a Web site. Within that txt file, you can instruct Google to skip that site when Google indexes the Web. Some bloggers questioned Murdoch’s resolve. If the company felt Google was stealing, why not remove the sites from Google search?

I think a major factor in that decision comes down to user behavior. Many people rely on search engines, RSS feeds and other aggregators to get a look at the news. The corporate home page is becoming less important. Without traffic from search engines, News Corp loses a good chunk of revenue.

But if Murdoch guides News Corp. to a pay-for-content model, he can afford to have fewer visitors reach his site. And if, as Jason Calacanis pointed out in a recent episode of This Week in Startups, News Corp. partnered with other search engines while pulling out of Google, it could potentially cause more harm to Google than News Corp. Thus, we have a game of chicken.

I don’t see Google budging on this any time soon — it would require a major shift in the company’s core values. But I could see Murdoch attempting this tactic. And if Murdoch succeeds, others may follow — the Associated Press has also hurled accusations at Google and other aggregators.

Here’s the interview with Sky:

And here’s Jason Calacanis’ analysis of the situation:

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