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Ask.com (originally known as Ask Jeeves) is a question answering-focused web search engine founded in 1995 by Garrett Gruener and David Warthen in Berkeley, California. The original software was implemented by Gary Chevsky from his own design. Warthen, Chevsky, Justin Grant, and others built the early AskJeeves.com website around that core engine. In late 2010, facing insurmountable competition from more popular search engines, the company outsourced its web search technology and returned to its roots as a question and answer site. Douglas Leeds was elevated from president to CEO in 2010.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://iac.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=20&item=2491 )〕 Ask.com has been criticized for its browser toolbar which behaves like malware; it has been surreptitiously bundled in with legitimate program installations, usually Oracle's Java, and cannot be easily removed from most common browsers once installed.〔("A close look at how Oracle installs deceptive software with Java updates", by Ed Bott, January 22, 2013 )〕〔("The Shameful Saga of Uninstalling the Terrible Ask Toolbar", by Lowell Heddings, February 19, 2013 )〕 Ask.com no longer bundles with Oracle's Java which now features a Yahoo! "experience." Three venture capital firms, Highland Capital Partners, Institutional Venture Partners, and The RODA Group were early investors. Ask.com is currently owned by InterActiveCorp (IAC) under the NASDAQ symbol . ==History== Ask.com was originally known as Ask Jeeves, "Jeeves" being the name of a "gentleman's personal gentleman", or valet, fetching answers to any question asked. The character was based on Bertie Wooster's valet Jeeves, in the fictional works of P. G. Wodehouse. In movies the Jeeves character was played by Arthur Treacher, the English actor who lent his name to another American franchise, Arthur Treacher's fish and chips. The original idea behind Ask Jeeves was to allow users to get answers to questions posed in everyday, natural language, as well as by traditional keyword searching. The current Ask.com still supports this, with support for math, dictionary, and conversion questions. In 2005 the company announced plans to phase out Jeeves and on February 27, 2006, the character disappeared from Ask.com. He was stated to be "going into retirement." However, the UK/Ireland edition of the website prominently brought the character back in 2009. IAC owns a variety of sites including country-specific sites for UK, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, and Spain along with Ask Kids, Teoma (now ExpertRank〔(Ask.com Search Technology ). Retrieved on May 11, 2009.〕) and several others. On June 5, 2007, Ask.com relaunched with a 3D look.〔(Major Relaunch For Ask: Ask3D ), Techcrunch, 2007-06-04. Retrieved on June 5, 2007〕 On May 16, 2006, Ask implemented a "Binoculars Site Preview" into its search results. On search results pages, the "Binoculars" let searchers have a sneak peek of the page they could visit with a mouse-over activating a pop-up screenshot. In December 2007, Ask released the AskEraser feature,〔(Ask.com Takes the Lead on Log Retention; Microsoft and Yahoo! Follow ), eff.org, Retrieved on January 3, 2008〕 allowing users to opt-out from tracking of search queries and IP and cookie values. They also vowed to erase this data after 18 months if the AskEraser option is not set. HTTP cookies must be enabled for AskEraser to function.On July 4, 2008, InterActiveCorp announced the acquisition of Lexico Publishing Group, which owns Dictionary.com, Thesaurus.com, and Reference.com.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Ask.com closes Dictionary.com deal )〕 On July 26, 2010, Ask.com released a closed-beta Q&A service. The service was released to the public on July 29, 2010.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Ask.com Q&A Service Drops July 29th )〕 Ask.com launched its mobile Q&A app for the iPhone in late 2010. Ask.com now reaches 100 million global users per month through its website with more than 2 million downloads of its flagship mobile app. The company has also released additional apps spun out of its Q&A experience, including Ask Around in 2011 and PollRoll in 2012. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ask.com」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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