Abstract: In one embodiment, a device-initiated search where a search device may initiate a proximity-informed search of one or more datastores based on processed proximity information strings, and then updates another datastore with the results learned from the first datastore and/or generates a second search query that may be forwarded to a second datastore. In another embodiment, a proximally-based database search may be initiated by a database when a search device sends proximity information (information strings geolocation information) to a first datastore, which may derive search information from the proximity information received from the search device, and then initiates a query of a second datastore with the derived information. The second datastore returns search results to the search device. In some embodiments, the second datastore may return results to the first datastore, which may then processes the results and then returns the processed results to the search device.