Google has taken aim at Microsoft in a strongly worded blog post, attacking its tech rival for its part in the recent news pay for publishing debacle in Australia.
The accusations come off the back of a tumultuous few months between the two companies, with Google alleging that Microsoft is using the discussions over media payment laws to distract from the continuing investigations and issues regarding SolarWinds.
Google’s accusatory blog post also came ahead of Microsoft President Brad Smith’s latest appearance in front of a Congressional hearing—to discuss Google’s stranglehold over online news coverage.
Google Hits Out at Microsoft’s Media Meddling
Google’s blog post centers on Facebook’s and Google’s recent issues regarding payments and contracts with news organizations in Australia. In short, the Australian government recently introduced laws requiring tech companies to pay media companies for news posted on their platforms. In response, Facebook banned then reinstated news on its Australian platform.
As two of the largest purveyors of online news, Google and Facebook were unhappy about the idea. Microsoft was in support, pushing its Bing search service as a better alternative.
Google’s recent blog post, penned by Kent Walker, senior vice president, Global Affairs at Google, pushed the idea that Microsoft is only engaging in these discussions and pushing this agenda to distance and distract from its own woes, namely the massive SolarWinds attack that has Redmond firmly at the middle.
As competition in these areas intensifies, they are reverting to their familiar playbook of attacking rivals and lobbying for regulations that benefit their own interests. They are now making self-serving claims and are even willing to break the way the open web works in an effort to undercut a rival. And their claims about our business and how we work with news publishers are just plain wrong.
Walker’s post touched upon how SolarWinds allowed “tens of thousands of their customers” to be “actively hacked via major Microsoft vulnerabilities,” even after Microsoft was warned about the vulnerabilities in their systems.
SolarWinds has quickly given way to the ongoing Microsoft Exchange Server attacks, led by a Chinese nation-state threat actor named Hafnium.
Google and Microsoft Trade Blows at Congressional Hearing
Google’s semi-incendiary blog post came just ahead of Microsoft President Brad Smith’s appearance in front of the US House Committee.
The Congressional hearing discussed the Journalism Competition Preservation Act.
This proposed law would allow news organizations to collectively forge deals with the tech giants regarding payments for the stories that appear on their sites. Currently, tech sites profit from news hosted on their platform without passing payment to the news outlets.
At the hearing, Smith made some bold statements regarding Microsoft’s position on the matter.
It’s perfectly clear that what was previously advertising revenue for newspapers has instead moved to advertising revenue for tech companies
Despite the hearing taking place against the backdrop of Microsoft and Google butting heads, the main focus remained on the proposed bill. Both Google and Microsoft agree that the substantial drop-off in newspaper revenues is at least partly attributable to the major tech firms.
For now, Google and Microsoft will have to try and find some mutual ground or at least agree to disagree because the debate over tech company payments to news outlets is only just getting started in the US.