"Microsoft is looking beyond Internet searches, heading into its battle with Google with technology designed to allow people to scour their e-mails, personal computers and even hefty databases for information," reports AP.
"The search system will give consumers 'an end-to-end system for searching across any data type,' Yusuf Mehdi, head of Microsoft's MSN division, told analysts at a Goldman Sachs Internet conference Wednesday in Las Vegas. His remarks were broadcast online."
Comment: Nothing much new here, and Microsoft has had hard drive searching technology for a decade (using Find Fast, and then the Indexing Service, two resource hogs that lots of us turn off). The interesting bit comes when Mehdi says MSN is also "working on a system that will track a user's movements over the Internet and use that data to build a more personalized Web page based on the person's surfing habits." As AP's reporter Allison Linn notes: "Mehdi conceded that such efforts create thorny privacy issues." Yep, you can bet this one will, Yusuf!
