Through the terms of the pact, the Ask.com search box is now prominently displayed across Photobucket.com, driving millions of additional Ask.com search queries each month and exposing the Ask.com brand to Photobucket’s 44 million monthly unique users worldwide. The agreement also includes the syndication of sponsored listings and display advertising to Photobucket.

“Photobucket has one of the largest online audiences, and now Ask.com provides these consumers with the answers to the questions they ask every day,” said Andrew Moers, Senior Vice President & General Manager, Ask.com Partner Network. “This alliance furthers our strategy to bring Ask.com to consumers worldwide through a broad range of Internet access points.”

“Search is a key component to the Photobucket experience and we know that our millions of users will benefit from Ask.com’s leading technology,” said Alex Welch, President of Photobucket. “Photobucket users view, store and share billions of images each month and Ask.com will serve as a great resource in helping those users find specific content quickly and efficiently.”

“Voice input is one more way Ask.com Mobile helps searchers find exactly what they are looking for faster and easier,” said Doug Leeds, senior vice president of product management, Ask.com. “The new ‘Click to Speak’ service is quick, free and accurate, and makes getting driving or walking directions a breeze.”

Voice In, Directions Out

Users of the Directions service on Ask.com Mobile will now see a new “Click to Speak” option. Clicking it, consumers are prompted to speak their location and their desired destination, either by specific address or closest intersection. Within seconds, they will receive a text message with a link to directions that can be viewed in either traditional list or turn-by-turn step format, with an additional option to switch between “Driving” or “Walking” routes.

“Voice input is a natural complement to the Ask.com Mobile Directions service,” said Amit Desai, co-founder and chief product officer of Dial Directions (www.dialdirections.com). “Dial Directions’ new spoken location interface technology offers a dramatic improvement over typing addresses on mobile devices. We look forward to a continued relationship with Ask.com as they look for new ways to further improve the mobile web search experience with Ask.com Mobile.”

Discussions have ensued over the past three months with stakeholders, including policymakers and data protection agencies worldwide. In Montreal on Sept. 27, industry leaders and consumer advocates convened to discuss privacy issues surrounding search and online advertising at an event sponsored by Privacy International.

“The Montreal meeting brought together many key participants in the online advertising and search markets, who increasingly recognize the importance of privacy in online advertising and search,” said Simon Davies, director of Privacy International. “The participants brought different perspectives, which underscores the need for continuing dialogue. This meeting was a good start.”

More such events are planned in the next few months. The Federal Trade Commission will host a Town Hall Nov. 1–2 to address consumer protection issues. On Nov. 8, Microsoft, Ask.com and others will participate in a roundtable hosted by New York University School of Law on the privacy issues surrounding online search. Also since July, many informal discussions have been held with industry leaders, privacy advocates and other stakeholders.

Already, dialogue has helped identify a need to start with a common understanding of key concepts. Some privacy concepts mean different things to different people. For example, some companies regard data as anonymous if only part of a computer user’s Internet Protocol (IP) address is associated with it. Others have discussed removing the entire IP address and all cross-session identifiers when they anonymize the data.

“When it comes to many privacy issues, working together makes sense,” said Doug Leeds, vice president of product management at Ask.com. “Industry communication is critical to helping support and amplify a sense of trust and integrity in the online domain. By laying some basic foundations around privacy, we can act positively on issues of online integrity for our users and for customers worldwide. We believe, more than ever, that the privacy and trust dialogue is moving forward, with the needs and expectations of our users in mind each step of the way.”

“It is important that industry come together around a common understanding of a set of best practices,” emphasized Peter Cullen, Microsoft’s chief privacy strategist. “We need to do the right thing for consumers on privacy. The goal is to provide consumers with greater transparency and control.”

In addition to Microsoft and Ask.com, others in the search and online advertising industry, such as AOL, Yahoo! and Google, have addressed related privacy issues in the past few months. The good news is that privacy in online advertising and search is on the agenda. Microsoft and Ask.com are cautiously optimistic that we will continue to progress toward industry principles.

When people search on AskCity (http://city.ask.com) for business listings that offer Entertainment coupons, they can review offers and print coupons with a free 14-day no-obligation trial of the Entertainment book service. With the trial, consumers now have full access to the entire Entertainment book coupon database including discounts for everything from dining and shopping, to travel and entertainment across the country. For example, people who search AskCity for “LensCrafters” in San Francisco will see a coupon for $75 off all eyeglasses.

Consumer trends demonstrate that economic conditions could be leading to increased coupon usage in 2007. According to BIGResearch’s Simultaneous Media Survey, 86% of the U.S. population is using coupons, a 10% increase from the year prior.

“AskCity has been widely touted as setting the pace for local search. Once again, Ask.com is raising the bar by providing people with content that is increasingly relevant in today’s economy,” said Doug Leeds, vice president of product management for Ask.com. “Ask.com is happy to provide an easy way to help people find the businesses they’re looking for and save money on products and services they want.”

“EPI has been providing people with high-value, quality discounts for over 45 years, primarily through our flagship product, the Entertainment book®,” said MaryAnn Rivers, CEO of Entertainment Publications. “Now, those who prefer an online experience can easily access relevant offers via local search in hundreds of cities across the U.S. Our partnership with Ask.com clearly supports our vision to make it easy for more people to save when they dine, shop and travel.”

While the market share leader and search category as a whole declined this year, Ask.com’s level of satisfaction grew from a rating of 71 in 2006 to 75 in 2007. This represents the highest increase year over year among all portals, search engines, and news and information sites measured by ACSI.

In addition to the highest increase year over year, Ask.com’s new score also represents a 21% increase in customer satisfaction since the company was first tested as AskJeeves with a score of 62 in 2002—the largest increase of any online company in the history of the ACSI.

“The latest ACSI scores show that the search category is still evolving, and innovation still really matters,” said Jim Lanzone, CEO of Ask.com. “Given Ask.com grew our user satisfaction scores more than any other search engine this year—despite the fact that the study was conducted before the release of Ask3D—we’re looking forward to even better results in 2008.”

Using the methodology of the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index, the study measured how well the top search and portal websites delivered the kind of site experience consumers want.

“Ask.com seems to be well-positioned to rival Google in the coming years because it has a strong search technology lauded by analysts and users alike and by developing impressive features to challenge Google’s lesser-known add-ons,” said Larry Freed, President of ForeSee Results, on the ACSI e-business report he authored today. “Ask.com has been more than rewarded by its customers for the changes in functionality and search technology by receiving the biggest increase in the e-business sector this year. The bottom line is, Ask.com is showing that it is hitting on all cylinders when it comes to customer satisfaction and user engagement, and this denotes a mastery of the crucial mix of evolution and revolution.”

Measurement for this particular survey was concluded in June 2007. Since the survey period ended, Ask.com has announced multiple efforts to increase customer usage and satisfaction, including Ask3D, a differentiated three-panel multi-media search interface that has increased engagement on Ask.com, and AskEraser, a product that will give consumers unique and groundbreaking control to prevent retention of their search history.

Ask.com and Dell’s Data Center Solutions Division (DCS) have developed an environmentally friendly plan that includes a combination of hardware and services to further Ask.com’s data center efficiencies. Specifically, the project provides a comprehensive computing architecture, including custom energy-efficient servers manufactured by Dell. Ask.com has found the new servers use 30 percent less power without compromising computing performance.

Additionally, Ask.com is the first corporate customer to participate in Dell’s “Plant a Tree for Me” program, which makes it easy for individuals and organizations to offset carbon emissions associated with electricity generated to power computer equipment. Dell partners with The Conservation Fund and Carbonfund.org, non-profit organizations that plant trees in managed reforestation projects to sequester carbon. Through its participation in the program, Ask.com will facilitate the planting of thousands of trees.

“Ask.com continues to minimize, reduce and offset carbon emissions in efforts to protect the environment,” said Chuck Geiger, executive vice president, technology and engineering at Ask.com. “By partnering with Dell on multiple green initiatives and ensuring that our new server facility in Eastern Washington uses hydro-power and less energy, we are pleased to be using less and giving back more.”

“Dell is committed to working with our customers to provide solutions that help simplify information technology and maximize data center efficiencies,” said Forrest Norrod, Dell vice president, DCS. “Dell achieves this through customizing products and services to drive even greater energy savings, which in turn help to lower emissions. Dell strives to be the greenest IT company on the planet and we commend Ask.com for its commitment to energy efficiency and helping protect the environment we all share.”

With AskEraser, people can ensure that their search history will not be retained by Ask.com. Searchers will have easy access to AskEraser and can change their privacy preference at any time. Once selected, searchers’ privacy settings will be clearly indicated on search results pages so they always know the privacy status of their searches.

“AskEraser is a great solution for those looking for an additional level of privacy when they search online,” said Jim Lanzone, CEO of Ask.com. “Anonymous user data can be very useful to enhance search products for all users, and we’re committed to being open and transparent about how such information is used. But we also understand that there are some who are interested in new tools that will help protect their privacy further, and we will give them that control on Ask.com.”

Ask.com engaged in discussions with privacy advocates at the Washington-based Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) as part of the process of developing an approach that gives users the ability to better control their search experience.

“We’re extremely pleased to see a new breed of innovative, competitive tools that allow users greater control over their personal information and online experiences,” said CDT Deputy Director Ari Schwartz. “With today’s announcement, Ask.com has taken an important step toward giving Internet users choice in how they control sensitive information about their online activities.”

With the announcement of AskEraser, Ask.com becomes the only major search engine to commit to giving consumers the control to prevent retention of their search history at the time of their search. AskEraser is expected to be deployed on Ask.com in the U.S. and U.K. by the end of the year, and globally early next year.

In conjunction with the release of AskEraser, Ask.com will also globally implement a new data retention standard that will completely disassociate search history from a user’s IP address or cookie information after 18 months.

• Americans conducted 8.0 billion searches online in June, up 6 percent versus May and up 26 percent versus June 2006.
• Google Sites led the pack with 4.0 billion search queries performed, followed by Yahoo Sites (2.0 billion), Microsoft Sites (1.1 billion), Ask Network (403 million), and Time Warner Network (341 million).  Despite declining in search market share in June, both Google Sites and Yahoo! Sites enjoyed increases in search query volume.
• Microsoft Sites experienced a significant increase in search query volume (up 36 percent) and search market share (up 2.9 share points) in June, due in large part to Live Search Club, a program launched by Microsoft in late May to engage and reward users of Live Search.

Ask Sponsored Listings (ASL) is an automated, open-auction system that allows search marketers to purchase, manage and optimize pay-per-click and contextual advertising campaigns on the ASL publisher network, including Ask.com.

As more consumers are making purchase decisions online, search marketing has emerged as a $15.8 billion global industry, and experts expect it to grow to $44.5 billion over the next five years. Search is also the second most commonly used application on the Web, with 550 million searches daily in the United States, according to Piper Jaffray & Co.* Local search is also catching on as more businesses want to be able to target their ads to a specific region; in 2006, local search accounted for approximately 15 percent of total online ad spending.** adManager is heeding these trends by offering small businesses a solution to develop a national or locally targeted search-engine advertising campaign in no time that can be managed across multiple search engines.

“We are very excited about the integration of Ask Sponsored Listings, as this provides more options for our small businesses to market their companies and attract new customers,” said Baris Cetinok, director of product management and marketing for Microsoft Office Live. “Adding Ask Sponsored Listings to our adManager service gets us one step closer to our goal of providing small businesses with an all-inclusive search engine marketing service.”

Cetinok continued, “Many small businesses feel that search engine marketing is a complicated and expensive process, and we want to demonstrate to our customers, especially those without a lot of time or budget, that pay-per-click advertising on adManager can be simple and affordable. adManager will help our small businesses promote their companies to the millions out there using the Internet to search for products and services.”

James Speer, general manager of search marketing at IAC Advertising Solutions, said, “The Ask Sponsored Listings search advertising network reaches over 59 million monthly unique users. The integration of Ask Sponsored Listings with Microsoft Office Live makes it easy for marketers to extend their pay-per-click ad campaigns to our publisher network.”

Search ads are text-based ads displayed on a search results page. They look very similar to search results displayed in the main body of the page; however, they are labeled as advertisements. To start the search engine marketing process, businesses can bid on keywords related to their services and products; their ad then has the potential of appearing when customers submit keyword searches on the Internet. Advertisers are charged only when their ad is clicked, which makes search advertising highly efficient.

adManager facilitates the pay-per-click advertising process for small businesses. Once a small business sets up an account with adManager, it can immediately select keywords to create its ads and set its bid amounts. adManager will work within the company’s budget, as well as target the campaign at the local or national level. In addition, the service will show results through detailed reports that describe which keywords are driving customers to the advertiser’s Web site.

With the new version of Ask.com, people get the most relevant and customized information they need from the best range of content available, including videos and music clips, and makes it all immediately accessible on one page. Ask3D replaces the previous version of Ask.com and is now available at www.ask.com.

“The new Ask.com is a complete redefinition of the search experience,” said Jim Lanzone, CEO of Ask.com. “On average, it takes people four queries to find what they are searching for online. This is because search engines have forced people to wade through endless lists of links, and refine query after query, to find the right information.”

“Ask3D reduces the amount of hunting and pecking it takes for people to find what they need. We do this by delivering the right information, from the deepest range of content, all on one clean and simple page. With Ask3D, we are taking a leap towards the future of search.”

Customized Results

Ask3D understands that no two searches are ever the same, therefore no two search result pages should be exactly alike. “Morph,” Ask3D’s new algorithmic content-matching and ranking technology, is the underlying technology that delivers the most relevant content for each search query, and places that content onto one single page. Morph chooses from content of all types, including Web pages, images, video, music clips and news, and transforms the page to each individual query.

Morph technology works in tandem with Ask.com’s unique ExpertRank algorithm, which determines the most relevant search results by identifying expert communities on the Web instead of simply displaying links by popularity. The combination of Morph and ExpertRank enables Ask.com to understand each person’s needs and provide them with what they want, faster.

More Information, Elegantly Displayed, All On One Page

Ask3D’s innovative three-panel design displays more customized results, taken from the best range of content available on the Web, all on one page. Representing the three dimensions of search, Ask3D’s panels include:

– “Query Expression” in the left panel. This panel serves as the search “control panel,” where people can quickly refine their search without ever having to leave the page by offering automatic suggestions to help narrow, expand or find related search terms. This service, called “Zoom Related Search,” is the number one most-used feature on Ask.com and relied on for more than 30 percent of all searches;

– “Results” within the center panel. Here, people can find their primary search results with links to Web pages and immediately preview sites directly from the results page by using an upgraded “Binoculars” feature, saving significant time and effort. Binoculars let people preview a Web page and are now 50 percent larger and faster than before. They also offer information such as the number of pop-ups on a given site, whether or not a site is Flash-based, and the amount of time it will take a site to load on a 56K connection. The top of this panel also shows the top Smart Answer, which provides quick snippets of information to help people get what they need, faster;

– “Content” within the right panel. This panel provides people with valuable information that goes beyond standard links to Web pages. The right panel offers a wide variety of content including images, news items, blogs, weather, time, videos and music clips. People can even preview videos and listen to music clips, right from the results page. Where most other major search engines serve ads in this area, Ask3D delivers even more content and continues to offer the fewest number of ads on a page.

Enhancing the Search Experience with New Innovations

Ask3D offers people additional new tools and features to make their search experience faster and easier:

– An All-New Homepage. Ask.com has a new homepage and offers customizable backgrounds that let people choose from a variety of designs to personalize their search experience. This summer, people will be able to upload their own images to customize their backgrounds even further. The new Ask.com also now features bold icons on the homepage to make it easier for people to search for specific content such as images, news and blogs. Additionally, Ask3D now offers search suggestions to help people more easily find what they need.

– See and Hear More, Right From the Results Page. People can now see video previews, listen to music clips, or even search through specific content such as images and news, all from the main results page. By simply hovering a mouse over video images, people can now preview video clips without having to navigate away from the page. People can listen to a music clip by simply clicking on the name of a song within the Ask3D results page. Also, Ask3D offers an image rollover feature, which enlarges an image so that people can see it in more detail.

– Location-Based Results. Ask3D now offers Smart Answer search results based on a person’s location. When people use Ask3D to search for “Starbucks,” they will see the locations nearest to them. When searching for “Gwen Stefani,” Ask3D lets people know when she is performing locally.

– Introducing Video Search. Now on Ask.com, people can find their favorite videos and preview clips right from the search results page. People can also filter results by video types, such as Flash, QuickTime and RealPlayer, or by length.

– Finding Images, Faster. With new filtering capabilities, people can now sort images by a wide range of categories including size, Buddy Icons, color, black and white and various media types.

For a complete list of features at Ask.com, please go to: http://about.ask.com/en/docs/about/site_features.shtml