Historically, Microsoft hasn't just paid to make Bing the default, it's required companies to disable the ability to change that default, meaning that all searc

Historically, Microsoft hasn't just paid to make Bing the default, it's required companies to disable the ability to change that default, meaning that all searches from the built-in search bar on (for example) Android devices from every major mobile carrier in the US went to Bing regardless of what users wanted. I wouldn't be surprised if they look to repeat this if they're allowed to buy the default and Google aren't; Yahoo paid Mozilla to be the default search in Firefox in the USA for a while and it didn't do much for them because people just switched, and the whole reason Google started paying so much to be default on Android devices is basically to stop Microsoft from doing that. That is, the outcome Microsoft seems to be looking for is one where they can reduce both consumer choice and competition by paying to make it more difficult to switch to non-Bing search engines and not allowing Google to pay companies more to make their more widely preferred search engine the default and not lock out the ability to change that default.