The company said on Monday that it would join media industry groups such as the European Publishers Council to lobby for such a policy, which lawmakers around the world are now considering.
The change comes later the Facebook (FB) it prevented people from finding news on its platform in Australia last week, instead of paying publishers for its content, a decision that produced a global reaction and generated negative headlines for the social media company.
“We welcome Microsoft’s recognition of the value our content brings to the core search engine and social media businesses,” said Christian Van Thillo, president of the European Council of Publishers, in a statement.
The Australian government is promoting legislation that would allow certain media outlets to negotiate with technology companies so that they can be paid for distributing the news they produce. Both parties would enter into arbitration if they do not reach an agreement.
The European Union and the United States face growing pressure to adopt similar measures. Canada’s government said it plans to introduce legislation in the coming months.
Facebook was strongly opposed to Australian legislation. Last week, it took the extraordinary step of banning users in the country from finding or sharing news about its service in protest against the policy. Meanwhile, Google has stopped threatening to pull its search engine to close deals with some of the country’s largest media organizations, including News Corp. by Rupert Murdoch.
Microsoft (MSFT), owner of the Bing search engine, is taking a different approach. She expressed her support for the legislation and pledged to keep her services in Australia if it goes into effect, seeing a chance to steal rival’s market share Google (GOOGL).
“It was an opportunity to combine good business with a good cause,” President Brad Smith said in a blog earlier this month.
The company said it would support similar measures in other countries, including the European Union, where lawmakers are debating new laws that would control the power of large technology companies.
Margrethe Vestager, the EU commissioner responsible for technology regulation, is holding a consultation on legislation with members of the European Parliament this week.
The new copyright laws in Europe require search engines and social media platforms to share revenue with publishers if their content is shown. But European publishers and Microsoft want leaders to enact “additional regulatory measures” to ensure that publishers have an influence on the negotiations.
Some French publishers have signed with Google, but without an arbitration mechanism, they fear that the press “may not have the economic strength to negotiate fair and balanced deals with these technology companies, which could threaten to abandon negotiations or exit markets entirely” , according to Monday’s press release.
“Access to new, broad and deep press coverage is critical to the success of our democracies,” said Microsoft vice president Casper Klynge in a statement.
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