Google says Microsoft’s position on news is an effort to distract itself from hacking

Microsoft President Brad Smith discussed Google at length in his prepared remarks at Friday’s hearing, saying online news is the food that powers Google’s search and advertising network, and suggesting ways for the search giant to better support the information industry. He expressed support for legislation that would give news agencies more bargaining power with Facebook and Google.

Other supporters of the bill include the News Media Alliance, an industry trade group that includes News Corp,

editor of the Wall Street Journal.

Just before the hearing, Google’s senior vice president of global affairs Kent Walker hit back in a blog post. He defended Google’s support for journalism, saying he paid publishers for links to their work and accused Microsoft of “naked corporate opportunism.”

“They are returning to their familiar playbook of attacking rivals and lobbying for regulations that benefit their own interests,” Walker wrote. “They are now making self-serving statements and are even ready to break the workings of the open web in an attempt to undermine a rival.”

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

Microsoft has a news app and website that it says includes content from over 1,200 publishers. Google, a unit of the alphabet Inc.,

said in October it was committing $ 1 billion to a new product called Google News Showcase that will support publishers around the world.

Mr Walker called Microsoft’s support history “spotty” and said the rival paid publishers less than Google.

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

The dispute was sparked by a global debate over new regulations that would require platforms to pay publishers to link to their news sites. Australia last month introduced legislation that would impose such payments, sparking multi-year licensing deals between Google and Facebook with content providers like News Corp.

Google had threatened to withdraw from Australia because of the legislation.

In his testimony on Friday, Mr Smith called Australia’s law reasonable and called Google’s exit plans damaging to the country, its people and publishers. He said he and Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella assured the country’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison that they were ready to lead Bing with 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 lawmakers pass laws, they don’t like them to stop and go, then something seems a little out of order,” Smith said. He added: “No one should be above the law. No person, no government, no business, no technology. ”

Microsoft’s pressure comes as Google defends itself against the Department of Justice’s antitrust lawsuit, filed last fall, alleging it illegally maintained its dominance as the web’s preeminent search engine by entering into trade deals to exclude its competitors. A trial is not expected until the end of 2023, but regulatory pressure has exacerbated tensions between tech companies facing a new review in Washington.

Microsoft and Google have fought over who would be the Internet’s keeper since the early 2000s, when Internet Explorer began to give way to what was then a search engine startup. As Microsoft postponed an antitrust investigation, Google rose to prominence and became the leading web browser, email provider, and mobile phone service. Tensions between tech companies intensified as their competition spread to new firms.

Microsoft and Google are both competitors and partners in a number of industries. Microsoft’s Bing search engine competes with Google’s most widely used service. Google’s efforts to expand its cloud computing division put the company in more direct competition with Microsoft. But the Redmond, Washington-based software company also relies on Google’s Android software on some of its Surface gadgets.

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

When Mr. Nadella took over in 2014, he sought a more peaceful relationship and ended the attacks. The executive responsible for the ad campaign, Mark Penn, left in 2015. In 2016, Microsoft and Google negotiated a truce and withdrew their regulatory complaints against each other globally.

Microsoft generated approximately $ 7.7 billion in Search Network advertising revenue in its most recent fiscal year. Last year, Google made around $ 104 billion in search-related sales.

Write to Tripp Mickle at [email protected] and Aaron Tilley at [email protected]