Goggle and Microsoft are loggerheads over the bill that would make media organizations make a deal with teach giants over how their content is distributed. The search engine giant has now accused Microsoft of undercutting a rival by ‘breaking the way the open web works.’ This has reignited the long-dormant row between the two companies. Microsoft has cleared its stand over the matter and said that it is full-heartedly supporting the proposed Australian law. The tech giant made it clear that its stand on the law is not going to change even if Facebook and Google oppose it. Also, Microsoft president Brad Smith recently appeared for a hearing over the content distribution law.
Smith, in a lengthy blog post, argued that it has become extremely difficult for media organizations to monetize the traffic as most of the profit is take away by Google. “Google has in a sense transformed itself into the main destination for news. This has helped Google owning the relationship with the reader and also relegating available news content to a commodity input,” he said in the post. Responding to it, Google senior vice-president of global affairs Kent Walker said that the move by Microsoft is nothing but ‘naked corporate opportunism.’ Walker accused Microsoft of doing everything to break the way the open web has been functioning. “It is doing so just to undercut a rival,” he said.
The two companies are known rivals for years and often fight through antitrust cases. But both the companies reached an agreement in 2016 and agreed to withdraw all competition complaints. At the moment, these companies are competitors on fronts like search, cloud computing, video conferencing, and email, among other areas. The companies have once again locked horns as the bipartisan bill has been reintroduced. The bill seeks to shift commercial power from tech platforms to the struggling news organization. The bill has been introduced weeks after a similar law was approved by Australia. The bill has been supported by Microsoft.
