> As we know from our own experience with Microsoft’s Bing search service, access to fresh, broad and deep news coverage is critical to retaining strong user en

> As we know from our own experience with Microsoft’s Bing search service, access to fresh, broad and deep news coverage is critical to retaining strong user engagement. This means that news content generates significant indirect value for search and social media sites [...] Microsoft’s Bing search service has less than 5% market share in Australia, [<4% it seems...] if we can grow, we are prepared to sign up for the new law’s obligations, including sharing revenue as proposed with news organizations. [...] the obligations described above could easily be written to apply to any search business that has more than 20% market share in Australia. At Microsoft, we are fully prepared to aim for this search share and become subject to the law’s obligations the day we do. [emphasis mine] So... If you quintuple our Aus market share, making it larger than anywhere else at present, then we'll happily give Murdoch a kickback. But if you just quadruple it, no, that's not enough. Until then, taking money from Google is good. I wonder if the oft repeated "independent news organizations" was simply misdirection, or code for "not ABC or SBS". Public funding of news organizations is highly contentious in the US. Encouraging the forcing of a US company to fund a foreign public broadcaster... is not pretty optics.