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After failing for almost a decade to convince Apple to ditch Google and set Bing as Safari's default search engine, Microsoft quietly changed tactics and offered to sell Bing to Apple in 2018, unsealed court documents showed Friday, confirming a Bloomberg report from last year.
According to Google's post-trial brief filed in the US Department of Justice's antitrust lawsuit against the search giant, Microsoft in 2018 dangled perhaps its best offer to Apple: Either "sell Bing to Apple or enter into a joint venture regarding Bing."
Microsoft seemingly hoped it could tempt Apple into partnering up by promising Bing's search quality had drastically improved, but the proposed deal didn't make it past the conversation stage. Apple rejected the 2018 offer after concluding "that Bing’s search quality had failed to improve and that little credence should be given to Microsoft’s representation of improved quality," Google's brief said.
