According to an article in WebProNews title Use MSN, Gates May Write You A Check, Microsoft is planning is planning to test a number of ways to compensate search users to use MSN.
Gates claims that Google is generating about $50 a year per user. He suggested that free content or perhaps even cash could be used to entice users to the MSN camp and away from Google. A very interesting strategy and one worth tracking.
Expect to see competitors get agressive here, especially those with stored value payment systems in place (e.g, eBay/PayPal or Amazon/A9) and heavy content sites (e.g., Yahoo!).