Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
Microsoft
Google has portrayed itself as a defender of the open internet, while opposing an Australian proposal to force Google and Facebook to pay Australian news organizations to link to their articles. Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, argued that the ability to link to content without paying ‘is fundamental to the operation of the Internet’.
Google has warned that if the proposal becomes law, the company could leave the Australian search market altogether.
But Microsoft, one of Google’s leading competitors on Google, does not seek the principle of free liaison. “While Microsoft is not subject to the legislation currently pending, we would be prepared to live by these rules,” Microsoft said of the Australian proposal in a statement to Reuters.
Australia’s new rules would initially only apply to two companies: Google and Facebook. According to regulators, these two businesses have such a dominant position in the Australian market – on search and social media respectively – that news organizations cannot negotiate with them on an equal footing. Google has 94 percent of the Australian search market, according to Reuters.
To rectify the alleged power imbalance between these technology giants and the Australian media, the proposal would force them into an arbitration process to determine how much news sites should be paid to link to their articles. Under the rules, the technical giants will definitely have to pay something-nor will they be allowed to stop linking to news sites to pay. These rules apply not only to Google News but also to regular search results, which also include regular news reports.
In the past, Google used hardball tactics to defeat these kinds of suggestions. In 2014, Google closed Google News in Spain to avoid having to pay to link to Spanish news sites. But this tactic has become less effective over time. France recently passed its own ‘link tax’ law requiring sites such as Google to get permission to use ‘snippets’ of news articles in search results, which in French are called ‘neighborhood rights’. French competition regulators said Google could not just stop showing snippets of French news sites in the search results, as it would discriminate against these sites.
So last month, Google agreed to pay French news sites to present their content in a new product called Google Showcase. While Google insists that this is not a pay-to-link agreement, the agreement will also cover ‘publishers’ neighboring rights’. In other words, the agreement gave Google a license to link to French news sites in search results.
Microsoft’s decision to break Google’s position further undermines Google’s bargaining position. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he spoke to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella last week. If Google leaves the Australian market, Microsoft will be ready to pick up the slack with Bing, Morrison said on Monday.
“Microsoft said in a statement that it would provide small businesses with the opportunity to transfer advertising business to Bing at no cost and that they would further invest in the product to ensure that it was competitive,” Reuters reported.