‘Microsoft wants competing AI tools to no longer use Bing data’

Microsoft reportedly wants competing search engines to stop using Bing search data for their own AI tools. Bloomberg reports this based on conversations with insiders. DuckDuckGo, among others, has a license for that data.

Microsoft has according to Bloomberg threatened to block access to the Bing search index if rival search engines don’t stop using that data as the basis for their own AI products. According to the tech giant, this is in conflict with the licensing contract. Microsoft is said to have accused at least two parties of breach of contract, but it is not known which ones they are.

Search engines Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, You and Neeva, among others, use Bing data under license for some of their information, as indexing the entire Internet is very expensive. Microsoft’s search index is a kind of map of the Internet that can be scanned in real time. The three latter search engines have all recently released an AI tool.

Google and Microsoft are the only two companies that have independently indexed the entire Internet. Google does not license the use of its search index, which means that all other search engines rely on Bing.

DuckDuckGo’s AI tool, DuckAssist