Until just a few weeks ago, a low-profile Bertelsmann subsidiary wastesting a file-swapping search engine that could have expanded the mediagiant's profile well beyond controversial partner Napster. A Bertelsmannspokesman said Monday that file-swapping service Snoopstar, which wasrunning in a beta program until earlier this month, had been shut down asthe giant focuses on its venture with Napster itself. Snoopstar is part ofBertelsmann's e-commerce group, which has taken the lead in investing in andworking with Napster since last October. "We have many IT companies withinBertelsmann's portfolio, and Snoopstar happens to be one of those," saidBertelsmann spokesman Frank Sarno. "We had a limited beta test period with some 1,000 users, but this period is over because we decided we have this strategic alliance with Napster, and Bertelsmann E-Commerce Group is reallycommitted to this cooperation." Engineers at Snoopstar had come up with asearch engine that looked for music and video files much like services onbig portal Web sites, and had decided to test it out, Sarno said. "There'snothing special about this." A history of the company and its technologylaid out by a series of online traces appears to tell a slightly moretangled story, however. It also appears to show that the media giant'se-commerce division was interested in tapping the potential of Napster'sfile-swapping revolution long before striking a deal with the company inOctober. Snoopster was registered as a domain name last July by MatthiasRunte, who listed himself in his online resume as a consultant toBertelsmann mediaSystems, a technology branch of the conglomerate'se-commerce division, until last August.
But another name soon enters the picture. A Nigerian-born student living inGermany named Mark Essien, who developed a file-sharing search engine calledGnumm last year, claims in an online posting to have sold his technology toSnoopstar. Gnumm was updated until last August, Essien says in a post on aopen-source Web site where the software was distributed. "The software wasnoticed by another company interested in file sharing technologies(Snoopstar), and they bought my software from me, and hired me to work forthem," Essien wrote in a letter arguing against software patents posted on aEuropean Linux site. Neither Runte nor Essien had replied to e-mails by lateMonday. Like the eventual Snoopstar software, Gnumm searched otherpeer-to-peer networks for files. Downloading the software would allow usersto search Napster and Gnutella at the same time, for example.
For its short life, Snoopstar did much the same thing, searching networksrunning the Napster and its open-source protocols, Gnutella and Imesh.Similar search engines have been hosted in the past by companies such asMP3Board.com, Angry Coffee and ZeroPaid.com. In a posting on his personalhome page, Essien said his new company creates file-sharing software that herecommends more highly than Gnumm, however. It's not whether Bertelsmann isfinished with the Snoopstar file-sharing search engine, even if its earlyversion has been taken offline. A posting on the company's site notes thatthe beta test has been suspended. It exhorts users to "check back frequentlyfor news."
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Copyright © 2001 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
