Apple Rejected Microsoft's Offer to Buy Bing Over Search Quality Concerns
• Microsoft offered to sell Bing to Apple in 2018, but Apple rejected the deal after concluding Bing's search quality was poor and Microsoft's investment was "not significant at all."
• Apple also briefly considered building its own search engine, but decided against it given Google's continued strong lead in search relevance.
• Microsoft has invested nearly $100 billion in Bing over 20 years, but still only has 5% market share compared to Google.
• Apple makes billions from its deal to set Google as the default search engine in Safari, which helps fund Apple's services investments.
• The DOJ antitrust case alleges Google uses deals like the Safari one to maintain an illegal monopoly, but Google argues it simply offers superior quality.