Microsoft and Google traded barbs Friday over proposals to require tech giants to pay news publishers for content, as lawmakers discussed challenges to the news industry at a House hearing. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is also in the hot seat as a unionization vote is in progress at a warehouse in Alabama, with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) inviting the billionaire executive to testify at a hearing next week about inequality. Meanwhile, the AFL-CIO slammed Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) for backing the unionization push at the plant while simultaneously opposing a federal bill that would offer protections for employees trying to unionize.<\/p>\n
GOOGLE VS. MICROSOFT:<\/strong>\u00a0Google on Friday slammed Microsoft in a blog post, accusing the rival company of backing proposals for tech giants to pay news publishers for content for self-serving purposes.<\/p>\n \u201cWe also believe that this important debate should be about the substance of the issue, and not derailed by naked corporate opportunism … which brings us to Microsoft\u2019s sudden interest in this discussion,\u201d Google\u2019s senior vice president of global affairs,\u00a0Kent Walker<\/a>, wrote in\u00a0a blog post<\/a>.<\/p>\n