CNET: Microsoft staffer charged with stealing search code

Microsoft has grown accustomed to other firms claiming it stole their ideas, but events took a literal turn last week when a Microsoft employee was arrested for allegedly stealing code from former employer AltaVista, now part of Yahoo. The 29-year-old French citizen Laurent Chavet appeared in a Seattle court and was released on a $10,000 bond. He is to be arraigned in San Francisco next week.

This could potentially complicate internal search engine development, if trade secret concepts from within that code were allowed to infect the development. With not much to show so far for its year of development, Microsoft may find this a convenient time to revert to its habit of purchasing a firm that has already made a product it can't seem to develop as well as it would like. Ask Jeeves executives are reportedly smiling and batting their eyelashes from Northern California.