Microsoft back Australia’s proposed law to make Google pay for news

Microsoft’s president Brad Smith said: ‘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’

The tech giant’s search engine, Bing, is currently the second most popular in Australia  (Getty Images)

Microsoft has given its support for Australia’s plans to make the country’s largest digital platforms pay for news. The technology company also announced that it would help small businesses to transfer their advertising across to Bing, should Google remove its service from the country.

This comes after Google Australia Managing Director, Mel Silva, told a Senate hearing last month that the search engine would likely be made unavailable in Australia, should the government implement a draft law to make tech giants pay for news content.

Ms Silva told a Senate committee that if the law is passed “it would give us no real choice but to stop making Google Search available in Australia.”

Microsoft has since been positioning itself to increase its market share for its own search engine, Bing. The tech giant has also offered its support of the so-called News Media Bargaining Code.

The News Media Bargaining Code means that tech companies would have to pay for news content created by local publishers and broadcasters and would no longer be able to publish it for free on their sites.

They would have to negotiate payments with creators, before they are allowed to show links to news on their platform, which would include in news feed and search results.

Should the law come into place, platforms who do not comply would face fines of up to A$10m (£5.6m).

Microsoft’s president Brad Smith released a statement saying that he, along with chief executive Satya Nadella, had told Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Communications Minister Paul Fletcher that "Microsoft fully supports" the News Media Bargaining Code.

Mr Morrison later confirmed that he had spoken to Mr Nadella about the prospect of Bing replacing Google in Australia. The prime minister attempted to allay fears saying on Monday: "I can tell you, Microsoft's pretty confident" that Australians would not be worse off.

Microsoft’s president said he had assured government leaders that small businesses who wished to transfer their advertising from Google to Bing, would be able to do so simply and without any transfer costs.

He added: "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 Fletcher told ABC News that the government would not back down to Google’s ultimatum, suggesting that the company “don’t always follow through.” However, this is the first time that a digital giant has threatened to remove its search engine in a country because of a proposed law.  

The Australia Institute's Centre for Responsible Technology welcomed Microsoft's stance and called on Google to withdraw its threat to close its search services within Australia.

The centre’s director, Pater Lewis explained: "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."

Bing is currently the second most popular search engine in Australia after Google, yet it only has a 3.6 per cent share of the market according to web analytics service Statcounter. On the other hand, Google says it has 95 per cent.

Lecturer on media from Swinburne University in Melbourne, Belinda Barnet said Bing and other search engines could be beneficial to Australians, in more ways than just filling a gap left by Google.

Ms Barnet suggested that Google and Facebook created an “echo chamber,” feeding people more and more of what they have previously searched for. She cited the spread of misinformation as an example of this.

The lecturer added that search engines such as Bing, DuckDuckGo and Ecosia are not personalised in the same way that Google is.

Ms Barnet went on to say that rather than looking back into your search history first, DuckDuckGo and Bing “will just give you the most accurate information that they can find.”