Microsoft attempt to sell Bing to Apple back in 2018, based on Google court documents

As reported by Bloomberg back in September 202, Apple has some expletory discussions with Microsoft about acquiring Bing. With the latest news from the latest unsealed court filing of this week, more details are surfaced regarding the discussions between Apple and Microsoft.

Reported by CNBC, these documents were a part of US Justice Department’s lawsuit as Google has been held to being a monopoly in the industry of web search. These documents were made public on Friday. Google declared the talk between Apple and Microsoft as evidence of having competitions in the search industry.

As per accusations from Google stated that Microsoft pitched Apple for making Bing its default search engine on safari, spotting on seven different occasions i.e. 2009, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2020. Google elaborated that each time Apple passed onto the opportunity due to its search quality.

As elaborated by Google, “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,”.

Along with that, Google added that Microsoft approached Apple back in 2018 to showcase the improvements that were made to enhance Bing’s search quality. Furthermore, Google alleged Microsoft’s goal to be either sell Bing to Apple or to launch a joint venture related to Bing.

These filings also included the comments from Apple’s service boss, Eddy Cue.

“Microsoft search quality, their investment in search, everything was not significant at all. 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.”

Naturally, Google and Apple have a profitable agreement in which Google pays Apple billions of dollars to set itself as the platform’s default search engine. Several reports have stated that one “primary reason” Apple’s acquisition negotiations with Bing never progressed past the exploratory phase was the money it made from its partnership with Google.