Microsoft backs Australian plan to make Google pay for news

3 February 2021, 06:34

People walk past the Microsoft offices in Sydney on Wednesday
Australia Digital Platforms. Picture: PA

Google has threatened to withdraw its search engine from the country if a law compelling it to pay for news content is passed.

Microsoft has said it supports Australia’s plans to make the biggest digital platforms pay for news and would help small businesses transfer their advertising to Bing if Google quits the country.

Microsoft has been positioning itself to increase market share for its search engine Bing after a Google executive told a Senate hearing last month it would likely make its search engine unavailable in Australia if the government implements a draft law compelling tech giants pay for news content.

Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a statement that he and Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella had told Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Communications Minister Paul Fletcher in an online meeting last week that “Microsoft fully supports” the so-called News Media Bargaining Code.

Mr Morrison this week confirmed he had spoken to Mr Nadella about Bing replacing Google in Australia.

Google-Pay Discrimination Settlement
Google has threatened to withdraw its search engine from Australia, where it holds around 95% market dominance (Michel Euler/AP)

“I can tell you, Microsoft’s pretty confident” that Australians would not be worse off, Mr Morrison said on Monday.

Mr Smith said he had assured government leaders that small businesses who wished to transfer their advertising from Google to Bing could do so simply and without transfer costs.

“We believe that the current legislative proposal represents a fundamental step towards a more level playing field and a fairer digital ecosystem for consumers, business and society,” Mr Smith said.

The Australia Institute’s Centre for Responsible Technology, an independent think tank, welcomed Microsoft’s stance and called on Google to withdraw its threat to close its search services within Australia.

“This is a significant development and should send a message to both Google and Facebook that their network dominance in Australia is only as strong as their respect for Australians,” the centre’s Director Peter Lewis said in a statement.

Australia Digital Platforms
Microsoft’s Bing is moving to capitalise if Google withdraws from Australia (Andy Wong/AP)

Although Bing is Australia’s second most popular search engine, it has only a 3.6% market share, according to web analytics service Statcounter. Google says it has 95%.

Swinburne University senior lecturer on media Belinda Barnet said Bing and other search engines could fill the void left by Google and deliver benefits.

“People need to realise it will not be personalised in the sense that Google advertising in searches is, so Bing doesn’t know and frankly doesn’t care that you’re in the market for yoga pants, for example,” Ms Barnet said.

“Some of these platforms, Google and Facebook in particular, feed you more misinformation if you’re already prone to clicking on misnformation, so they create this echo chamber, in a sense.

“But a product like DuckDuckGo and Ecosia is not going to know that in the past you’ve looked at a hundred articles about how vaccines are bad and they will just give you the most accurate information that they can find.”

By Press Association

More Technology News

See more More Technology News

TikTok on a smartphone

TikTok to begin appeal against possible US ban

The Darktrace wesbite

Darktrace set to leave London Stock Exchange at end of September

An unidentified hacker in dark hoodie performing at a comupter

UK convenes nations for talks on global cybersecurity

Icons of social media apps, including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and WhatsApp, are displayed on a mobile phone screen

Meta to begin training AI on public posts from UK Facebook and Instagram users

JLR Rover the Boston Dynamics robot dog (JLR/PA)

JLR’s new ‘Rover’ is a robotic dog employed to protect brand’s EV facility

The logo and name of the technology company OpenAI on a smarthpone

OpenAI unveils new models designed to think more before answering

A person looking at a mobile phone whose screen has been blurred

Government strengthens Online Safety Act to crack down on revenge porn

Vodafone and Three logos

Vodafone and Three merger could increase phone bills for millions, watchdog says

A mobile phone mast being photographed by a mobile phone

6G network at least a decade away, expert says

A sign for the London underground in central London.

Teenager arrested over Transport for London cyber attack

Cyber security

BT ‘logs 2,000 signals of potential cyber attacks every second’

ChatGPT website with pink lettering displayed on a screen

OpenAI in talks to raise funds at £115bn valuation – reports

Person typing on a laptop

UK data centres to be designated as ‘critical infrastructure’

A plaque outside the offices of the Data Protection Commission in Dublin

Irish watchdog launches probe into Google’s AI model

The technology giant said the growth of cloud computing and artificial intelligence was key to the increasing investment (Niall Carson/PA)

Amazon Web Services ‘to invest £8bn in UK over next five years’

The hands of a person on a laptop keyboard

Most people have no plan for digital assets upon death, Which? warns