Microsoft Takes It To Google and Facebook
Microsoft takes it to Google and Facebook as it joins the EU publishers to push the aggregators to pay for news contents. The age of frenemy is here - no one is a friend or any enemy in any way. Microsoft knows that it has no platform at the consumer level and will be happy to see Google and Facebook spend some of the money.
Microsoft has plainly been delighted with Google’s and Facebook’s misfortunes in Australia, where legislators are about to force them to pay news publishers for reproducing snippets of articles in their search results and news feeds. And now it’s trying to make its Big Tech rivals squirm in Europe, too.
On Monday, Microsoft and Europe’s four biggest news-publisher associations issued a joint call for the EU to adopt similar reforms to those being passed in Australia.
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They said “gatekeepers that have dominant market power”—meaning Google for search, and Facebook for social networking—should be forced to pay publishers for using their content, with the price being decided by an arbitration panel.