To many, Google is the internet while few know there are alternatives such as Bing and Duckduckgo, Microsoft the owner of Bing is working on making its own search engine especially in Australia as uncertainty rises regarding Google.
For the records, the Australian government recently introduced a new regulation which would require payments to media outlets by tech giants like Google.
Reuter reported that social media companies like Facebook will be required to pay domestic media outlets whose content links are what drives the traffic to these major platforms.
However, majority of these big tech firms have continued to oppose this new law stating that they’ll withdraw a number of their key services from the country if the regulations were to be enforced.
This would have the withdrawal of Google’s search engine from the region, which accounts for nearly 94 percent of the nation’s search engine market at the moment.
Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella on the other hand spoke with the country’s Prime Minister about the new regulations stating that his company was ready to expand its influence to the market through its search engine called Bing which sits in the second place right behind Google as the world most popular search engine.
“I can tell you, Microsoft’s pretty confident, when I spoke to Satya. We just want the rules in the digital world to be the same that exist in the real world, in the physical world.” says Australian PM Scott Morrison.
The conversation was also confirmed by a Microsoft’s spokesperson who declined on revealing further details about the move.
The official further added that “We recognize the importance of a vibrant media sector and public interest journalism in a democracy and we recognize the challenges the media sector has faced over many years through changing business models and consumer preferences.” Unfortunately, Google has yet to respond to this matter.
Will Google intentionally lose out on such a big market or will it comply with the new regulations or will the Australian government lessen its regulations tell us your thoughts in the comment section below.