Currently, Google is facing a lawsuit from the Department of Justice (DoJ) for antitrust violations in the United States. The investigation is ongoing in court. Google has submitted various documents to the court, revealing “new information” that Microsoft had proposed selling Bing to Apple in late 2018, but Apple ultimately rejected the offer.
Google’s documents indicate that Microsoft tried to pitch Bing as the primary search engine for Safari and iOS several times (2009, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2020), but Apple rejected each time after finding that the quality of Bing search results was much inferior to Google’s. Additionally, Apple also discovered discrepancies in search results in various countries where Apple operates. Moreover, Microsoft had around 1,000 employees in the Bing team, far fewer than Google’s 6,000 employees, and showed little interest in investing more in Bing.
A crucial discussion took place in late 2018 when Microsoft presented a plan to Apple again, inviting them to invest in Bing. Microsoft went as far as suggesting Apple to acquire Bing, which startled Apple as they believed Microsoft was not committed to investing in Bing and was looking to sell it instead.
Eddy Cue, the Apple executive overseeing services at that time, believed that if the Bing business were genuinely good, Microsoft wouldn’t have considered selling it. He pointed out that Apple would never give Microsoft free use of iOS and ultimately Tim Cook formally rejected the offer to Satya Nadella.
However, Microsoft persisted and approached Apple again in 2020, proposing the use of Bing in iOS and Safari once more. Apple declined the offer, citing the same reason that the quality of Bing was not up to par, and that users would inevitably switch back to Google Search, rendering the agreement useless.
Google presented this information to the court to argue that they did not engage in anticompetitive behavior by prohibiting Apple from using Bing as a search engine competitor, but rather Apple chose Google because they provided a superior service that outperformed other players in the market.
Source: Full document (PDF), CNBC
TLDR: Google faces a lawsuit for antitrust violations as Microsoft unsuccessfully tried to sell Bing to Apple, with Apple rejecting the offer due to Bing’s inferior search quality compared to Google. Apple chose Google over Bing for its superior service.
Leave a Comment