Copernic 99: This free search agent retrieves information from the Web, newsgroups, and e-mail directories.

CNN: Downloads to improve your Web experience

In another case in Texas, an American woman crossing the border in Brownsville in late 2012 was forcibly thrown on the ground and injured by an agent during a search.

WSJ: Immigrant groups sue federal border agencies

At 27, with the encouragement of a makeup-artist friend, that search led her to a small modeling agent in Cologne.

WSJ: On the Cover: Supermodel Kati Nescher

Adam Goldstein, the 23-year-old Hipmunk co-founder, has been dabbling in travel search since he became the de facto travel agent for his debate team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

BBC: The future of travel search

Software is coming, too, including a buying agent called E-speak that can search the Web, inventory other programs and broker deals.

FORBES: All Carly, all the time

He just briefly ran through some of the themes, from a growing trade relationship to the joint search for Americans missing in Vietnam and the long-term effects of America's use of the defoliant Agent Orange in the war.

NPR: Bush, Triet Talk Trade, Human Rights

In October, Excite, which is evolving from the second-largest Internet search site to a fully fledged online service, bought NetBot in order to acquire the firm's shopping-agent technology, with which it hopes to create a virtual megastore.

ECONOMIST: Internet shopping: The once and future mall | The