Microsoft offered Bing for sale to Apple in 2018, but Apple would not be interested because of the search engine’s quality.
That’s what Google claims in a legal battle. Google’s claim was made public last weekend. The lawsuit against Alphabet relates to the possible monopoly around search engine advertising. Possibly at the root of the agreements between Google, Apple and phone makers were trying to enforce exclusivity for Google’s search engine. For example, the lawsuit revealed that Google paid $26 billion, nearly €24 billion, three years ago to have its search engine be the default.
Quality
Google wants to prove the company stands for fair competition. This month, Google argued that rival Microsoft offered Bing to Apple in 2009, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2020. Microsoft wanted to make Bing the default search engine for Apple’s Safari browser. However, Apple reportedly refused each time because of Bing quality problems. “In each instance, Apple took a hard look at the relative quality of Bing versus Google and concluded that Google was the superior default choice for its Safari users. That is competition,” Google states.
“Microsoft search quality, their investment in search, everything was not significant at all,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services, according to the filing. “And so everything was lower. So the search quality itself wasn’t as good. They weren’t investing at any level comparable to Google or to what Microsoft could invest in. And their advertising organization and how they monetize was not very good either.”
According to Google, Microsoft even offered Apple to sell Bing in 2018. At the time, Microsoft reportedly said, among other things, that Bing’s quality had improved significantly. Another option Microsoft had in mind was a joint venture of Bing with Apple. Apple CEO Tim Cook, according to Google, has also had e-mail traffic with other Apple executives to review Bing.
Google and Microsoft have been asked for comment, but there is no public statement yet.
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