Report by Tanya Singh:
Microsoft urged other countries to ask the press to pay for articles published online, led by Australia, on Thursday. This is a move that Facebook and Google opposed.
Microsoft last week offered to fill the void if rival Google follows through on a threat to turn off its search engine in Australia over the plan.Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a statement the company fully supports proposed legislation in Australia that would force Google and Facebook to compensate media for their journalism.
“This has made for an unusual split within the tech sector, and we’ve heard from people asking whether Microsoft would support a similar proposal in the United States, Canada, the European Union, and other countries,” Smith said in a blog post.
Google and Facebook, backed up by the US government and leading internet architects, have said the scheme would seriously undermine their business models and the very functioning of the internet.
Both Facebook and Google have insisted they are willing to pay publishers for news via licensing agreements and commercial negotiations, and both have signed deals worth millions of dollars with news organizations around the world.
Google has said the bargaining code should focus on facilitating these kinds of negotiations, but it rejected the idea of mandatory “final offer” arbitration.
