Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has since spoken with Prime Minister Scott Morrison about the new rules
Sydney:
Software giant Microsoft Corp. is confident that its search engine Bing can fill the gap in Australia if Google pulls its search on the necessary payments to the media, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Monday.
Australia has introduced laws that would force internet giant Google and social networking site Facebook Inc to negotiate payments to internal media whose content links drive traffic to their platforms.
However, Big Tech firms considered the laws ineffective and said last month they would withdraw key services from Australia if regulations continued. Those services include the Google search engine, which owns 94% of the country’s search market, according to industry data.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has since spoken to Morrison about the new rules, the technology company told Reuters, and on Monday, Morrison said the software company is ready to increase the presence of its search engine Bing, the remote player no. . 2.
“I can tell you, Microsoft is pretty confident when I talked to Satya,” Morrison told Canberra reporters, without giving further details about the conversation.
“We just want the rules in the digital world to be the same as they are in the real world, in the physical world,” Morrison added.
A Microsoft spokeswoman confirmed that the discussion took place, but declined to comment because the company was not directly involved in the laws.
“We recognize the importance of a vibrant media sector and public interest journalism in a democracy and recognize the challenges the media sector has faced over the years by changing business models and consumer preferences,” the spokesman said.
A Google representative was not immediately available for comment.
Earlier in the day, Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had requested a meeting on the law and that they had spoken, but that he would not withdraw the change.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by NDTV staff and is published in a syndicated stream.)