Lawmakers on Friday debated an antitrust bill that would give news publishers collective bargaining power with online platforms like Facebook and Google, putting the spotlight on a proposal aimed at chipping away at the power of Big Tech.

At a hearing held by the House antitrust subcommittee, Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, emerged as a leading industry voice in favour of the law. He took a divergent path from his tech counterparts, pointing to an imbalance in power between publishers and tech platforms.

Newspaper ad revenue plummeted to $14.3 billion in 2018 from $49.4 billion in 2005, he said, while ad revenue at Google jumped to $116 billion from $6.1 billion.

“Even though news helps fuel search engines, news organisations frequently are uncompensated or, at best, undercompensated for its use,” Smith said.

“The problems that beset journalism today are caused in part by a lack of competition in the search and ad tech markets that are controlled by Google.”