Claria Tooling Up Meta-Search Engine Based On Adware Data

Adware company Claria, which bills itself as “a pioneer and leader in the behavioral marketing space,” is in the alpha stage (not public) of a new meta-search engine based on the data collected from use of its adware and a patent-pending process called RelevancyRank. VistaLabs Search evaluates how consumers interact wuth search results. One example offered in the press release: a college student and a businessman looking for hotels in China have different needs and should get appropriate results.
Claria is being hampered by its relatively small adware user base — about 40 million — and needs higher numbers to go deeper. Claria CMO Scott Eagle told MediaPost that the company needs to work with creators of widely distributed toolbar or IM apps and is in talks with “marquee companies.” He’s hoping for new distribution deals by 1Q06.
This is the kind of thing that made the recent buzz about a possible acquisition of Claria by Microsoft more plausible to me. I’m not trying to start a fresh wave of rumors, just thinking about the emphasis Microsoft is placing on search and whether matching this with its own MSN Search would be an advantage, especially of there’s a way to separate it from the “adware” aura. Press release.

The Search channel is sponsored by ECNext.

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