Not that it will make much immediate difference to the search site but, after facing continuing criticism that it’s stealing their content and their ads, the Big G is now full-square behind local newspapers’ plea for relaxation in media merger rules.

Publishers like Trinity Mirror (LSE: TNI) and DMGT’s Northcliffe, hit by online ad migration and the ad downturn, are losing money at alarming rates, axing many staff and have for some months called for rules to be relaxed, allowing them to join forces. Spurred by the Digital Britain draft review, the Office of Fair Trading and the House Of Commons’ culture, media and sport committee in March launched inquiries in to the local news business, and culture secretary Andy Burnham has hinted at relaxation.

Times Online got an advance copy of Google (NSDQ: GOOG) UK MD Matt Brittin’s submission to the OFT inquiry, in which he backs the move. Roger Parry, chair of the seven-publisher Local Media Alliance group lobbying for the relaxation, (via Times): “Web pioneers like Google have changed the rules of the game ... (it’s) very reassuring to have the case for a new regime supported by the game changer-in-chief”.

Meanwhile, Google’s global sales and biz dev president Nikesh Arora, who recently stepped up from running the EMEA region, spoke to Radio 4’s Today on the idea of newspapers charging for web content: “At the end of the day, people create content and find different ways of monetising it. A free paper on the tube gets monetised by advertising, the premium content with no advertising in cable TV gets purely paid by the consumer - on the internet, you will see such models emerge.

• Updated: Well If You Can’t Beat ‘Em; Yell To Sell Google AdWords
• @ FIPP: Google UK MD: ‘We’re The Solution’ For Publishers, Not The Problem
• Google UK Ad Boss To Newspapers: We’re Not Stealing Your Advertisers
• Google, NUJ Still Utterly Opposed On Story Aggregation
• Google Won’t Buy Ailing Newspapers, Could ‘Merge Without Merging’