Microsoft Doesn’t Own Livesearch.com

Livesearch.com is not owned by Microsoft. This may not be news to some, but it’s not a subject that’s gotten much attention until today. John Battelle accidentally typed livesearch.com into his address bar and got a domain squatter.

If you search for "livesearch.com" on live.com, the page is nowhere to be found. You get a list of Microsoft’s Live Search products with a Live Search Wikipedia entry thrown in for good measure: 

Search for "livesearch.com" on Google and you get "Did you mean: lifesearch.com?" which I find somewhat amusing. You get a couple listings from a "lifesearch.com" query and then Microsoft’s Live Search Maps, followed by the livesearch.com domain squatter page, and then Microsoft’s live.com.

As for the squatter page’s existence, I’m guessing Microsoft could obtain it if they really wanted to. So what does this mean for the Live Search name?

People have already been anticipating the rebranding of Microsoft’s search. Back in late November, there was talk about the next incarnation being named Kumo. More on that here.