Bogus search engine pulls plans for IPO

I interned for the company that provided Accoona's search engine software. This same software has been deployed successfully in many enterprise environments, is based on solid IR theory and research, and had powered a large web search engine in the late 90's.

However, any company trying to use it to compete with Google/Yahoo/MSN today, has 0 chance of succeeding. It's like trying to use Lucene to compete with Google. While these IR systems are solid and great for special purpose deployments, they provide little means of dealing with spamdexing, and all the other things a full web search engine needs in modern times.

It was obvious to me two years ago that Accoona was founded to capitalize on the search engine craze of the time as opposed to delivering a competitive product. I'd stay really far away from their stock if they ever go IPO.

How on earth did they get the likes of Bill Clinton and Eckhard Pfeiffer to associate with such a sham?