Google says Microsoft’s stance on news is an attempt to distract from the hack

Microsoft President Brad Smith discussed Google at length in his prepared remarks at Friday’s hearing, saying that online news is the food that feeds Google’s search and advertising network, and suggests ways the search giant could better support the news industry . He expressed support for legislation that would give news organizations more bargaining power with Facebook and Google.

Other supporters of the bill include the News Media Alliance, an industry group to which News Corp belongs

publisher of The Wall Street Journal.

Just before the hearing, Kent Walker, Google’s senior vice president of global affairs, shot back in a blog post. He defended Google’s support for journalism, claiming it paid publishers for links to their work and accused Microsoft of “naked business opportunism”.

“They are returning to their trusted playbook of attacking rivals and lobbying for regulations that benefit their own interests,” wrote Mr. Walker. “They are now making self-righteous claims and are even willing to break the way the open web works in an attempt to undermine a rival.”

Mr. Walker said it was “no coincidence” that Microsoft’s attacks on Google occurred during an ongoing investigation into the software giant’s role in two recent hacks.

Microsoft offers a news app and website that it claims contains content from more than 1,200 publishers. Google, a unit of alphabet Inc.,

said in October that it was investing $ 1 billion in a new product called Google News Showcase that will support publishers around the world.

Mr. Walker characterized Microsoft’s history of supporting news as “spotty”, saying the rival has paid less to publishers than Google.

Microsoft declined to comment on Google’s statement. Google declined to comment further.

The dispute was sparked by a global debate about new regulations that would require platforms to pay publishers for linking to their news sites. Last month, Australia introduced legislation that would enforce such payments, sparking multi-year licensing agreements between Google and Facebook with content providers such as News Corp.

Google had threatened to withdraw from Australia because of the legislation.

During his testimony on Friday, Mr. Smith considered Australian law reasonable and described Google’s plans to leave as harmful to the country, its people and publishers. He said he and Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella assured the country’s prime minister, Scott Morrison, that they were willing to run Bing at a lower margin than Google because it was important “that we all succeed together”.

“When companies start threatening countries and say that if their lawmakers pass laws they don’t like, they will quit and leave, then something seems a little out of place,” said Mr Smith. He added, “No one should be above the law. No person, no government, no company, no technology. ”

The pressure from Microsoft comes as Google defends itself against the Justice Department antitrust lawsuit filed last fall, alleging that it has unlawfully maintained its dominant position as the web’s premier search engine by entering into business deals to exclude competitors. A trial is not expected until the end of 2023, but regulatory pressure has sparked tensions between tech companies being re-examined in Washington.

Microsoft and Google have been battling over who would be the internet’s gatekeeper since the early 2000s, when Internet Explorer began to give way to what was then a search engine. While Microsoft fended off an antitrust investigation, Google grew in importance and became the leading browser, email provider and cell phone service on the web. Tensions between the technology companies increased as their competition expanded to new companies.

Microsoft and Google are both competitors and partners in a number of businesses. Microsoft’s Bing search engine competes with Google’s more widely used service. Google’s efforts to build its cloud computing division put the company in more direct competition with Microsoft. But it in Redmond, Wash. based software company also relies on Google’s Android software for some of its Surface gadgets.

Microsoft has a long history of lobbying against Google. Under the leadership of Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, Microsoft launched an ad campaign against Google attacks called “Scroogled” that ran from 2012 to 2014.

When Mr Nadella took over in 2014, he sought a more peaceful relationship and ended the attacks. The executive responsible for the ad campaign, Mark Penn, left in 2015. In 2016, Microsoft and Google entered into a truce and withdrew their regulatory complaints worldwide.

Microsoft generated approximately $ 7.7 billion in search ad revenue in the past fiscal year. Google had about $ 104 billion in search-related sales last year.

Write to Tripp Mickle at [email protected] and Aaron Tilley at [email protected]