Clarence Briggs, founder of the Advanced Internet Technologies in Fayetteville, is taking on a new undertaking. But he faces some huge rivals.

Briggs believes tyBit could become a major player in the search industry, which is dominated by Google and Yahoo! tyBit is designed to run on all manner of devices and doesn't need big data centers.

He said tyBit not only delivers better search results but also provides more protection for users and helps produce more revenue for partners than paid by other major search engines. On its Web site, tyBit cites "four degrees of relevancy" as the key factors in its results: location, source, behavior, and time. So far, tyBit is drawing strong interest. Thirty-five internet service providers and other firms have signed on to use it, according to Briggs.

Briggs also believes tyBit is an effective counter to "click fraud." He has been outspoken in his criticism of the current pay-per-click Web model. "The top search providers have set up and profited considerably from an affiliate model to sell and deliver online pay-per-click ads that is fundamentally flawed because the model encourages click-fraud and is a clear conflict of interest," he said. "Worst of all, the advertisers never get to see who is clicking on their ads and are expected to just pay for fraudulent traffic without an itemized bill. This is killing search relevancy and will ultimately lead to a decline in ROI and business confidence."