Sources: Microsoft president Brad Smith will testify before a House antitrust subcommittee hearing next Friday about tech antitrust and the news media
Context & Ripple Effects
This hearing is the second time in under a year that Brad Smith sits across from House antitrust investigators: ahead of last summer's Big Tech hearing, sources reported the committee privately consulted him on how Apple runs its App Store. Since then, Microsoft has gone public with a media-specific agenda, with Smith arguing in February that the US should adopt Australia's proposed rules forcing tech platforms to pay for news content.
The hearing matters because it gives Microsoft an official stage to frame its rivals' conduct as the antitrust problem — days later, Smith told the same panel that news publishers struggle to monetize referral traffic because Google squeezes out most of the profit.
First-order effects
- Microsoft gets a sanctioned forum, one week out, to advance its case against Google and Apple before lawmakers — with Smith arriving fresh off his public endorsement of Australia-style payment mandates.
- The House subcommittee secures a sitting Big Tech president willing to testify about competitors' platform practices, giving it a friendly insider witness rather than only targets.
Second-order effects
- Google faces pressure to respond publicly to claims that its search referrals leave publishers with little monetization — a fight over who captures ad value on news traffic.
- News publishers gain a powerful corporate advocate inside the process, raising the odds that US legislators weigh mandatory content payments modeled on the Australian framework Smith endorsed.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, congressional antitrust hearings become a venue where large platforms redirect scrutiny toward each other — Microsoft positioning itself as the news industry's ally while regulators probe its rivals.
- The longer arc points toward legislated compensation regimes for news content spreading beyond Australia, with platform lobbying — not just publisher pressure — shaping which model lands.
The trend: Big Tech firms are increasingly using antitrust testimony to turn regulatory heat toward rivals, with platform payments for news emerging as the legislative battleground.