Ask.com, formerly known as Ask Jeeves, is an Internet search engine. It is also the company name of the division of IAC Search & Media, founded in 1996 by Garrett Gruener and David Warthen in Berkeley, California. The original software was implemented by Gary Chevsky from his own design. The RODA Group, a venture capital firm, was an early investor.
Ask.com owns a variety of sites including country-specific sites for UK, Germany, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, and Spain along with Ask For Kids, Teoma (now defunct), Excite, MyWay.com, iWon.com, Bloglines and several others. The combined traffic to these web sites places
Ask.com in the top ten parent web companies in the US, as rated by both comScore and Nielsen//NetRatings in September 2004. As of June 5, 2007 the site relaunched with a new, more simplistic look.
Source: Wikipedia