Desperate to get back in the search engine race, Yahoo has released a new service called "Build Your Own Search," that will share Yahoo's technology with third parties.

It means that any Web site will be able to assemble a search engine using Yahoo's system for indexing information and images on the Internet. Yahoo is providing web developers with a set of tools that would have cost more than $300 million to build from scratch.

What Yahoo wants in return is the right to display ads alongside the results of any search engine that piggybacks on its technology. So far  Hakia and Me.dium, already have agreed to participate in the BOSS program. The cunning plan is that it will mean that other micro-search engines can start up and break up the market a bit while still giving Yahoo cash.