ED, should district purchase educational search engine? [D88]

Proviso Herald (Chris LaFortune):

District 88 is looking into the purchase of netTrekker, a program similar to the popular Web search engine Google, Superintendent Nichelle Rivers said.

Instead of getting bogged down with a lot of information, as on a Web search engine, netTrekker allows students access to educational research material only, Rivers said.

Here's my thinking.

When students graduate they are going to use Google and other search engines. Why not train them on the search engines they will have available after graduating?

I'm not keen on spending money for something that is available for free. What's the value added of netTrekker? What's the downside educationally?

BTW, who is netTrekker's sales rep? Is some politically connected person going to get a commission on this?