bird - 7:51 pm on May 25, 2005 (gmt 0)

By that argument, Google, Yahoo, MSN search, etc. all also "enable file-sharing".

BitTorrent is a very efficient distribution mechanism for largish files to large numbers of recipients. Many sites offering videos or other voluminous content use it to reduce their server load. In most cases, this has nothing at all to do with piracy.

Other than the typical file sharing networks, BitTorrent doesn't include any kind of search mechanism. Consequently, it makes sense to establish a seperate search engine, so that people can actually find all that perfectly legal content out there that is prepared for download through BitTorrent. In my eyes, this is a brilliant move by AskJeeves. They're way ahead of the pack here.

Btw: The lack of a builtin search makes BitTorrent somewhat tedious for illegal use. This is so because you always need to publish your feeds in some other ways, which makes it harder to maintain anonymity.