Bing, Microsoft's search engine, is currently not working properly. At first I found that browsing the web was completely impossible. Search results now seem to load properly.
However, the outage appears to still affect Bing's application programming interface (API), meaning other services that rely on Bing will not function properly.
For example, DuckDuckGo and Ecosia, two alternative search engines that rely on Bing's search results, do not currently return any search results. Microsoft Copilot also does not load. Even ChatGPT Plus subscribers who have web search capabilities get an error when they try to search for something.
Once again, the outage proves the web's dependence on a small number of technology companies. When an API goes down, many services are affected.
In this particular case, it's interesting to note that the Bing API is playing an increasingly important role. Google still dominates web search, but many services now rely on Bing's API.
Microsoft could not immediately be reached for comment on the outage.
