Ask.com

Ask.com headquarters in Oakland , California .

Ask.com is an Internet portal that originally functioned as a search engine , but now only generates answers from a fixed question-and-answer pool.

history

Ask.com was founded in 1996 by Garrett Gruener and David Warthen in Berkeley , California and was initially called Ask Jeeves (until February 2006) . This should indicate the company's idea of getting search results by entering questions in full sentences. Ask's search results were based on Teoma algorithmic search technology developed at Rutgers University in New Jersey .

In March 2004, Ask.com took over Excite . Douglas Leeds was named CEO of Ask.com in 2010. Under his leadership, the website reverted to its original form as a question and answer service (Q&A) and abandoned its standard Internet search technology. Criticism drew Ask.com by its offensive way up, without explicit consent of the user - and in many places unlawful manner - a search bar in the top of the Internet browser in the form of the ask toolbar to install, differing only with special effort again can be removed.

distribution

Ask.com was part of Barry Dillers InterActiveCorp (IAC) and is the fourth largest search engine in the US after Google , Yahoo and Bing . According to the website Alexa.com, Ask.com is currently the 47th most visited website in the world (as of September 2012). Ask.com ranks 22nd in the United States.

Since January 25, 2006, a German ( beta ) version of the search engine has been available at Ask.de. According to a report by the market research company Nielsen Netratings, Ask.de was the second most frequently used search engine in Germany in the first quarter of 2009. The domain is no longer used.

Ask plug-ins

An Internet Explorer attachment has been available since the end of 2007 that provides an anonymized search function and does not store any data on the user's search behavior. In 2008, IAC took over Lexico Publishing Group LLC with its websites Dictionary.com (dictionary), Thesaurus.com (Roget's new Millennium Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases) and Reference.com (lexicon) as well as the free software CleverKeys for searching the pages.

Also on offer is the Ask toolbar , a browser extension that enables Internet searches from any website and allows you to save personalized searches.

Ask.com has also had a Q&A app for iPhones since the end of 2010.

criticism

Criticism is to the Ask Toolbar, often as a malicious program ( English malware ) and Crapware is classified. The browser extension fits so deeply into the system that normal uninstallation can be hindered. In some cases, removal is only possible with special software tools or through a system restore .

The Ask toolbar was part of the standard installation of various programs, including Java , which had to be explicitly deselected in the Java installer.

Web links

German official website
David versus Google . In: Die Zeit , No. 41/2005
Markus Krajewski: Ask Jeeves. The servant as an information center . In: Wissenschaftszeitung Recherche , January 2009, on the story of Ask Jeeves.

Individual evidence

↑ Ask Jeeves is an allusion to the omniscient servant Jeeves , a fictional character by the British-American writer PG Wodehouse .
↑ Archived copy ( Memento from April 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
↑ Archive link ( Memento from October 28, 2012 on WebCite )
↑ comScore Releases July 2008 US Search Engine Rankings ( Memento from August 24, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), Comscore
↑ http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/ask.com#
↑ Press release on the start of the German beta version ( Memento from August 19, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
↑ Search engine ranking: Google remains at the top, Ask.com in second place on horizont.net
↑ pressetext.deutschland: Search engine blurs surf tracks and IP addresses (pte / July 20, 2007/12: 05)
↑ Ask.com buys Dictionary.com parent Lexico , REUTERS
↑ http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/ask-com-has-an-iphone-app-that-lets-you-ask-and-get-local-answers-20100924/
^ Ian Paul: Microsoft's good deed for the day: browser-hijacking Ask Toolbar gets the banhammer on Windows. PCWorld, June 11, 2015, accessed July 18, 2015 .
^ Jared Newman: Java installer ditches the Ask Toolbar, swaps in Yahoo defaults. PCWorld, June 25, 2015, accessed May 24, 2017 .

[1] Ask Jeeves is an allusion to the omniscient servant Jeeves , a fictional character by the British-American writer PG Wodehouse .

[2] Archived copy ( Memento from April 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive )

[3] Archive link ( Memento from October 28, 2012 on WebCite )

[4] Score Releases July 2008 US Search Engine Rankings ( Memento from August 24, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), Comscore

[5] ttp://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/ask.com#

[6] Press release on the start of the German beta version ( Memento from August 19, 2006 in the Internet Archive )

[7] Search engine ranking: Google remains at the top, Ask.com in second place on horizont.net

[8] ressetext.deutschland: Search engine blurs surf tracks and IP addresses (pte / July 20, 2007/12: 05)

[9] Ask.com buys Dictionary.com parent Lexico , REUTERS

[10] ttp://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/ask-com-has-an-iphone-app-that-lets-you-ask-and-get-local-answers-20100924/

[11] Ian Paul: Microsoft's good deed for the day: browser-hijacking Ask Toolbar gets the banhammer on Windows. PCWorld, June 11, 2015, accessed July 18, 2015 .

[12] Jared Newman: Java installer ditches the Ask Toolbar, swaps in Yahoo defaults. PCWorld, June 25, 2015, accessed May 24, 2017 .