Microsoft quietly announced earlier this week that it plans to shut down a long-standing tool supplying search engine startups and other software developers with a raw feed of Bing search results. The Bing Search APIs, or application programming interfaces, were once vital to many niche Google alternatives, but fell out of favor more recently as Microsoft hiked fees for the service and restricted its use. Brian Brown, chief business officer of privacy-focused search engine Brave, which stopped using the Bing Search APIs in 2023 after developing its own technology, says Microsoft “is sending a clear signal” to other search companies that it is tightening loose ends amid growing competition. One of the bigger customers that is unaffected for now is the search engine DuckDuckGo, company spokesperson Kamyl Bazbaz confirmed to WIRED. The loss of the Bing APIs adds another layer of complexity to the already uncertain future of search engines, which have long been the most visible gateway to the web.