The company said on Monday it would work with media industry groups such as the European Publishers Council to lobby for such policies, which lawmakers around the world are now considering.
The move comes after FacebookFB prevented people from finding news on their platform in Australia last week instead of paying publishers for their content, a decision that sparked global backlash and generated negative headlines for the social media company.
“We welcome Microsoft’s recognition of the value our content brings to the core business of search engines and social networks,” said Christian Van Thillo, president of the European Publishers Council, in a statement.
The Australian government is pushing for legislation to allow certain media outlets to negotiate with technology companies so that they can be paid for the distribution of the news they produce. Both parties would enter into arbitration if they cannot reach an agreement.
The European Union and the United States are under increasing pressure to take similar measures. The Canadian government has said it plans to introduce legislation in the coming months.
Facebook has vigorously opposed Australian law. Last week, it took the extraordinary step of banning users in the country from finding or sharing news about its service in protest at the policy. Google, meanwhile, went from threatening to coax its search engine into making deals with some of the country’s largest media organizations, including Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.
MicrosoftMSFT, owner of the search engine Bing, takes a different approach. It expressed support for the legislation and is committed to keeping its services in Australia if it goes into effect, and sees an opportunity to steal market share from rival GoogleGOOGL
“It was an opportunity to combine good business with good cause,” President Brad Smith said in a blog post earlier this month.
The company has said it would support similar measures in other countries, including the European Union, where policymakers are debating new laws that would curb the power of big tech companies.
Margrethe Vestager, the EU commissioner in charge of technical regulation, is holding a consultation on the legislation with MEPs this week.
New copyright laws in Europe require search engines and social media platforms to share revenue with publishers when their content is displayed. But European publishers and Microsoft want leaders to take “additional regulatory action” to ensure publishers have leverage in the negotiations.
Some French publishers have signed up with Google, but without an arbitration mechanism, they fear that the press “ may not have the economic strength to make fair and balanced deals with these gatekeeper technology companies, who would otherwise risk running away from negotiations or leaving markets altogether. ” , according to Monday’s press release.
“Access to fresh, broad and in-depth press coverage is critical to the success of our democracies,” Microsoft Vice President Casper Klynge said in a statement.
