Microsoft threatens to restrict access to Bing’s internet-search data to rival companies providing AI-powered online search tools

  • Microsoft has told at least two licensee firms that using its Bing search index to feed their AI chat tools violates the terms of their contract
  • Bing’s search index – a map of the internet that can be quickly scanned in real time – is licensed by Microsoft to other firms that offer web search

Microsoft Corp has integrated a cousin of ChatGPT, start-up OpenAI’s artificial intelligence-powered chat technology, into Bing. Photo: Tribune News Service
Microsoft Corp has threatened to cut off access to its internet-search data, which it licences to rival search engines, if they do not stop using it as the basis for their own artificial intelligence (AI) chat products, according to people familiar with the dispute.
The software maker licences the data in its Bing search index – a map of the internet that can be quickly scanned in real time – to other companies that offer web search, such as Apollo Global Management’s Yahoo and DuckDuckGo.
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