A9.com
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Screenshot of the home page |
A9.com, which went live on
April 14,
2004, is an
Internet search engine from
Amazon.com. Its results derive from
Windows Live Search, supplemented by
Alexa, Amazon.com and other engines for specific search types.
A9 has many features which many popular
search engines lack. In addition to generic web searching, A9 has the ability to search the book results from Amazon.com that include "Search Inside the Book" (as long as a user registers with Amazon.com). As with
Google's
Search History, if a user signs in, that user can view their search and click history. The A9 toolbar features a "search diary" designed to allow users to jot down notes about pages that they visit. Another feature is
OpenSearch, a set of technologies for search syndication and aggregation.
A9 is now out of its
beta version, with a new color scheme. Its interface allows users to combine search results together, allowing side by side comparison of results.
A
toolbar add-on exists for
Internet Explorer and for
Firefox, with support for other browsers under development.
Mycroft offers an unofficial plugin.
A9.com uses many different search engines for specific uses:
*
Windows Live Search performs general web and news searching. (From
April 14,
2004 to
April 30,
2006 Google performed general web, news, and image searching.)
*
Amazon.com offers "Search Inside the Book."
*
Answers.com looks up reference databases.
*
Wikipedia (via Answers.com) for encyclopedia entries.
*
Zoominfo for people summaries.
*
IceRocket blog search.
*
A9 searches through user history.
*The
Internet Movie Database offers movie searching.
*plus over 200 additional search services that can be added.
The release of A9 was met with some controversy: some regard it as
spyware. The features built into A9 record all of a user's searches and link them to the person's
Amazon.com account. A9's privacy statement says::
"We may, from time-to-time, employ other companies and individuals to perform functions on our behalf. Examples include sending e-mail and analyzing data. They have access to personal information needed to perform their functions, but may not use it for other purposes."Some have speculated that A9.com will use
data mining for targeted advertising (similar to
Gmail). People worried about their privacy can use
Generic A9, which does not record personal information.
Those who use both A9 and Amazon (with
cookies enabled) can earn a slight benefit of a 1.57% Amazon discount (at this possible cost of privacy). From the Amazon.com webpage:
"Sponsored links revenue - from the small text-based ads on A9.com and Amazon.com search results pages - will help offset costs we incur through the Rewards promotion. With our automatic π/2% discount, we are effectively sharing with you some of the money we collect from sponsored links, i.e. sharing the pi." [
1]
In January
2005, A9.com added its "
BlockView" feature to the Yellow Pages and Maps searches, allowing users to view photos of businesses on many streets in over 24 major U.S. cities after searching for a business name in that city (
as of January 2006). Users can also scroll up and down the street view (i.e., up and down the
block, hence the name of the feature) in order to see images of other nearby businesses and the areas surrounding them. A9.com plans to continually add new images from a large number of U.S. cities. [
2]
*
A9.com*
Generic A9*
a9.com Maps with links to the cities with BlockView
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a9.com Yellow Pages *
Discussion and review of the new search engine*
Discussion of privacy concerns with A9*
List of search engines}
