Sorry MSN, no AOL for you - at least not yet (or Richard Parsons is using the media to increase your offer price)...

AOL portal leaves beta & Time Warner sees AOL as the way forward, but is it?

I think Yahoo! & MSN are spot on with their search strategy. Going forward you are best off owning your own search service. Why? Because if you ever become too strong your search provider can give you inferior quality stuff. It is oh so easy for Google to bolt on a remove this URL feature that makes users feel like they own the results and are making the web a better place. It is a lot harder for AOL to do stuff like that without locking them into using a specific provider and getting a lower cut on future revenues as they become more reliant on that partner.

You need a Google account to be able to use the remove result feature. Remove this site adds a quick and easy way for surfers to give Google feedback without needing to file a needless spam report.

When Google first created their accounts many people were afraid to sign up because they did not want Google knowing what sites they owned. I sorta think that having a number of Google accounts with a long search history will be a great way to help influence search results.