Rumors swirled this week on the Internet that Microsoft is gearing up for its own sponsored search service, after three job announcements for search marketing specialists at Microsoft surfaced on a
blog. Microsoft's only response was to issue the statement through a spokesman: "Search is a long term investment for Microsoft and MSN. We continue to grow our expertise and talent pool; however, we
do not have anything else to share at this time." Microsoft launched its own search engine in November, but Yahoo!'s Overture has a contract to power most of the sponsored search listings through June
of 2006.
--Wendy Davis
