Microsoft wants to branch out and develop an internet-search technology to compete with (and, it hopes, muscle out) Google.
Remember AltaVista? The hot search engine before Google? Two years ago, someone hacked into Altavista and stole source code.
Turns out he's just been arrested in Redmond, Washington by the FBI. Guess what? He's a Microsoft employee, and previously worked for AltaVista until February 2002. The break-ins at Altavista began a month later. According to the Seattle P-I, he's on Microsoft's MSN Search development team. No word from USA Today or the P-I on whether he was working for Microsoft at the time of the AltaVista code theft. Microsoft has declined further comment.
