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Microsoft chairman Brad Smith speaks (left) and Google’s Sundar Pichai.
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Microsoft and Google have quarreled over their practices and treatment of the media in a battle between antitrust targets of yesterday and today.
In his written testimony for a hearing before the House Justice subcommittee on antitrust on Friday, Microsoft Chairman Brad Smith said Google had made the media dependent on its wide range of services, including analysis and advertising tools, while taking advantage of access to their content. Smith said Google relied on content from these outlets to keep its users engaged, citing his own experience with Microsoft’s Bing search engine.
Smith said Google’s referral traffic has real value to news organizations, but “monetizing that traffic has become increasingly difficult for news agencies as most of the profits have been drained by Google.” He pointed to a sharp drop in newspaper advertising revenue from $ 49.4 billion in 2005 to $ 14.3 billion in 2018, according to Pew Research. During the same period, he said, Google’s advertising revenue grew from $ 6.1 billion to $ 116 billion.
“It is not a coincidence,” he said.
Google turned to Smith in a statement released ahead of the hearing, recalling Microsoft’s antitrust review period two decades ago.
“We respect and compete with Microsoft’s success in cloud computing, research, productivity applications, video conferencing, email and more,” said Kent Walker, senior vice president of business global Google in a blog post. “Unfortunately, as competition intensifies in these areas, they are reverting to their usual manual of attacking rivals and lobbying for regulations that benefit their own interests. They are now making self-serving statements and are even ready to break the workings of the open web. in an effort to undermine a rival. And their claims about our business and the way we work with news publishers are just plain wrong. “
While Google has recently been in the hot seat of antitrust enforcement, facing several lawsuits from the federal government and state attorneys general, Microsoft was the subject of a landmark antitrust lawsuit around the turn of the century. This lawsuit, which claimed that Microsoft illegally maintained a monopoly and warded off competition by linking its Internet Explorer browser to PCs running its operating system, deeply informed the current allegations against Google, which also involve alleged anti-competitive contracts.
Walker claimed that Microsoft’s testimony dates back to this same time period.
“This latest attack marks a return to long-standing Microsoft practices,” he wrote. “And it’s no coincidence that Microsoft’s new interest in attacking us follows the SolarWinds attack and a time when they cleared tens of thousands of their customers – including government agencies in the United States – United, NATO allies, banks, profits, telecommunications providers, utilities, police, fire and rescue units, hospitals and, presumably, news agencies – to be actively hacked through major Microsoft vulnerabilities. “
Microsoft infamously launched a campaign against Google around 2012, mocking its services with a parody called “Scroogled”. The campaign aimed to alert consumers to allegedly unfair practices by Google and direct them to Microsoft’s search competitor instead. Walker said the latest attack was reminiscent of the “old hijacking Scroogled playbook. “
The two giants recently clashed over a similar issue in Australia, which was working on new laws that would require Facebook and Google to pay news publishers to link to their content. Although the legislation was ultimately watered down after Facebook kept its promise to stop posting topical content in the country, it served as a warning to tech companies that further changes could be imminent in others. parts of the world.
Although Google never pulled its news service out of Australia and eventually made deals with publishers. Microsoft had signaled that it was ready to intervene if Google removed its news service. The company said it would be willing to abide by Australia’s rules if it were made subject to them and would not threaten to withdraw its service.
Walker said in a statement Friday that Google remains committed to working with news organizations and policymakers “to enable a strong future for journalism.”
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