You really have to wonder sometimes. Today’s Washington Post has an article about Amazon.com switching its A9 web search service from Google’s to Microsoft’s search engine. It says, in the third paragraph, “Although they are not labeled as such, A9’s search results are now provided by Windows Live Search, Microsoft’s new search engine …”

“Not labeled as such”? Let’s see. I just did an A9 search. In the header at the top of the results page there’s a clicked click box labeled “Web by Live.com.” At the top of the list of results there are the words “Web Results by Windows Live.” Over on the right side of the page, there’s a brightly colored “Powered by Windows Live ” logo. At the end of the list of results there are the words “Search results provided by Windows Live.” And, in the page’s footer, there’s that click box again, labeled “Web by Live.com.”

Not only are the Live search results “labeled as such,” but they’re “labeled as such” with such fanatical intensity that you have to believe that the labels themselves are a fairly important part of the deal. I’m thinking that Jeff Bezos probably doesn’t give those kinds of labels away for free.