Microsoft Corp. may share its online search revenue with consumers, according to a presentation in India last week by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates.

The potential move may be a way for Microsoft to raise the competition against Google Inc., which makes money from its AdSense advertising program.

Gates says that Microsoft may woo consumers to use MSN Search by offering cash, free content or software.

"The inverse value proposition for advertising -- is it perhaps better than a plan to charge users for each click? The plan would single handedly remove all click fraud while forcing users to really think about searching," says iMedia Search Editor Kevin Ryan.

Microsoft could also entice more advertisers to buy ads on its online services to generate more users on its site.

"We'll actually go to users and say instead of us keeping all that ad revenue, we'll actually share some of it back with the user. Users essentially will get paid, either money or free content or software things that they wouldn't get if they didn't use that search engine," says Gates.