edia mogul Barry Diller�s company IAC/InterActive Corp bought Internet search engine Ask Jeeves in a deal worth over $1.85 billion. This puts IAC in the competitive area of search engine marketing. It is already home to Internet businesses including Expedia, Ticketmaster, Match.com and CitySearch. Diller is expected to combine Ask Jeeves with CitySearch in a bid to boost advertising revenues.

Originally British, Ask Jeeves is now a California-based company. Its revenue and profits more than doubled in the fourth quarter of last year to $86.1 million and $17.5 million respectively. Most of its revenue is derived from advertising that appears on its sites through a contract with Google, that is due to run until 2007.... more