Google says Microsoft’s position on the news is an attempt to divert hack

During his trial on Google, Microsoft President Brad Smith discussed Google in his prepared remarks, saying that online news is the food that feeds the Google search and advertising network, and suggests ways in which the search giant can better support the news industry. He expressed his 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 with the industry that News Corp.,

publisher of The Wall Street Journal.

Just before the trial, Google’s senior vice president of world affairs, Kent Walker, shot back in a blog post. He defended Google’s support for journalism, claiming it paid publishers for links to their work, accusing Microsoft of ‘bald corporate opportunism’.

“They return to their well-known playbook to attack competitors and work for regulations that benefit their own interests,” he said. Walker wrote. “They are now making self-sufficient claims and are even willing to break the way the open web works in an attempt to undermine a competitor.”

Mr. Walker said it was “no coincidence” that Microsoft’s attacks on Google came amid ongoing investigations into the role of the software giant in two recent hacks.

Microsoft presents a news app and website that they say contains content from more than 1,200 publishers. Google, a unit of the Alphabet Inc.,

said in October that they were committing $ 1 billion to a new product called Google News Showcase that would support publishers around the world.

Mr. Walker describes Microsoft’s history of supporting news as ‘spotty’ and says the competitor paid less to publishers than Google.

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

The dispute has been fueled by a global debate over new regulations requiring platforms to pay publishers for linking to their news sites. Last month, Australia introduced legislation that would force such payments, which would trigger licensing transactions between Google and Facebook with content providers such as News Corp.

Google has threatened to pull Australia out of the legislation.

During his testimony Friday, Smith described the law of Australia as reasonable and considered Google’s plans to leave the country, its people and publishers harmful. He said he and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, the country’s prime minister, Scott Morrison, had made sure they were willing to run Bing at a lower margin than Google because it was important “for all of us to succeed together. ”

“When companies start threatening countries and saying that if their legislators pass laws, they don’t like to pull up and go away, then something seems a little out of order,” he said. Smith said. He added: ‘No one may rise above the law. No person, no government, no company, no technology. ”

Microsoft’s pressure comes as Google defends itself against the Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit filed last fall, claiming that it has illegally maintained its dominant position as the leading search engine on the web by concluding business deals to lure competitors close. A trial is not expected until late 2023, but pressure on regulation has fueled tensions between tech companies facing Washington.

Microsoft and Google have been arguing over who would be the Internet’s gatekeeper since the early 2000s, when Internet Explorer began to give way to the then-launching of a search engine. As Microsoft repulsed an antitrust investigation, Google became very prominent and became the Internet’s leading browser, email provider, and mobile service. The tension between technology companies has increased as their competition has expanded to new ventures.

Microsoft and Google are both competitors and partners in a number of business areas. Microsoft’s Bing search engine competes with Google’s more widely used service. Google’s efforts to build its cloud computing division bring the company into more direct competition with Microsoft. But the Redmond, Wash.-Based software company, also relies on Google’s Android software on some of its Surface devices.

Microsoft has a long history of lobbying against Google. Under CEO Steve Ballmer, Microsoft launched an anti-Google attack advertising campaign called “Scroogled” which ran from 2012 to 2014.

Then Mr. Nadella took over in 2014, he sought a more peaceful relationship and ended the attacks. The CEO responsible for the advertising campaign, Mark Penn, left in 2015. In 2016, Microsoft and Google mediated a ceasefire and withdrew their regulatory complaints against each other worldwide.

Microsoft generated approximately $ 7.7 billion in search advertising in the most recent financial 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]