Microsoft President Brad Smith speaks (L) and Sundar Pichai from Google.
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Microsoft and Google discussed their practices and handling of news outlets in a battle between past and present antitrust targets.
In his written testimony before a hearing before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust Friday, Microsoft President Brad Smith said Google has made journalism outlets dependent on its wide range of services, including analytics and advertising tools, while benefiting from access to their content. . Smith said Google relies on content from these outlets to keep its users engaged, citing its own experience with Microsoft’s Bing search engine.
Smith said referral traffic from Google has real value to news outlets, but “monetizing that traffic has become increasingly difficult for news organizations as most of the profits have been squeezed out by Google.” He pointed to a sharp drop in newspaper ad revenue from $ 49.4 billion in 2005 to $ 14.3 billion in 2018, according to Pew Research. Over the same period, he said, Google’s ad revenue grew from $ 6.1 billion to $ 116 billion.
“This is no coincidence,” he said.
Google returned to Smith in a statement released ahead of the hearing, harking back to Microsoft’s antitrust investigation two decades ago.
“We respect Microsoft’s success and compete hard with them in cloud computing, search, productivity apps, video conferencing, email and many other areas,” said Kent Walker, Google’s senior vice president of Global Affairs, in a blog post . Sadly, as competition in these areas intensifies, they fall back on their trusty playbook of attacking rivals and lobby for regulations that benefit their own interests. They are now making self-righteous claims and even willing to change the way the open web works. in an effort to undermine a rival. And their claims about our company and how we partner with news outlets are downright wrong. “
While Google has recently been in the hot seat when it comes to antitrust enforcement, facing several lawsuits from the federal government and public attorney general, Microsoft was at the center of a groundbreaking antitrust case at the turn of the century. That lawsuit, alleging that Microsoft was illegally maintaining a monopoly and eliminating competition by linking its Internet Explorer browser to PCs running its operating system, profoundly informed the current allegations against Google, which also relate to alleged anti-competitive contracts.
Walker claimed Microsoft’s testimony dates back to the same period.
“This latest attack marks a return to Microsoft’s old practices,” he wrote. “And it is no coincidence that Microsoft’s renewed interest in attacking us follows the SolarWinds attack and at a time when they have admitted tens of thousands of their customers – including US government agencies, NATO allies, banks, non-governmental organizations. profits, telecommunications providers, public utilities, police, fire and rescue units, hospitals and presumably news organizations – to be actively hacked through major Microsoft vulnerabilities. ”
Microsoft waged an infamous campaign against Google around 2012, mocking its services with a parody called ‘Scroogled’. The campaign aimed to alert consumers to Google’s alleged unfair practices and instead direct them to Microsoft’s search competitor. Walker said the latest attack was reminiscent of the ‘old distraction man’ Scroogled Playbook. “
The two giants recently went head-to-head over a similar issue in Australia, which had been working on new laws that would require Facebook and Google to pay news outlets for linking to their content. While the legislation was eventually watered down after Facebook fulfilled its promise to stop displaying news content in the country, it served as a warning to the tech companies that further change in other parts of the world could be on the brink.
Although Google never took its news service out of Australia and ended up making deals with publishers. Microsoft had indicated it was ready to intervene if Google removed its news service. The company said it would be willing to play by Australia’s rules if it fell under those rules and did not threaten to withdraw its service.
Walker said in Friday’s statement that Google remains committed to working with news organizations and policymakers “to enable a strong future for journalism.”
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