IndustryAsk.com To Open R&D Center in Germany

Ask.com To Open R&D Center in Germany

Ask.com announced a new Germany research and development center to be headed up by Eric Heymann, former head of technology at Seekport, as director of global content acquisition today. The German R&D center will work closely with the Pisa, Italy, Campbell, Calif., and Piscataway, N.J. locations. Apostolos Gerasoulis, VP of search technology at Ask.com, said, “the expansion of our European research and development team will allow Ask.com to continue to develop and scale our world-class search.” The full press release is posted below.

Ask.com Announces Research and Development Center in Germany

Eric Heymann, Former Head of Technology for Seekport,
Appointed to Lead Hamburg Team

OAKLAND, Calif., September 11, 2006 – Ask.com, an operating business of IAC/InterActiveCorp (Nasdaq: IACI), today announced the formation of a new development center in Hamburg, Germany. The company also announced the appointment of Eric Heymann as director of global content acquisition for Ask.com. The former head of technology at Seekport, Heymann will lead the development team in Hamburg.

“The expansion of our European research and development team will allow Ask.com to continue to develop and scale our world-class search,” said Apostolos Gerasoulis, executive vice president of search technology at Ask.com. “In addition, we are proud of the appointment of Eric Heymann as the head of the Hamburg team, as he is widely recognized for his expertise in information retrieval, crawling technologies, Web algorithms and scalable systems. His many years of experience and expertise in search will prove extremely beneficial for our users worldwide.”

The Hamburg team will focus on global search technology research and development, working directly with the Ask.com R&D centers in Pisa, Italy, Hangzhou, China, Campbell, Calif., and Piscataway, N.J. Following the opening of the research center in Pisa earlier this year, this move continues to solidify Ask.com’s presence in Europe, with recent site launches of Ask Espana, Ask Deutschland, Ask France, Ask Italia and Ask Nederland.

As director of global content acquisition for Ask.com, Heymann will play an important role in the development of core technologies that power the Ask.com search engine. Specifically, Heymann and his team will focus on crawling technologies to index global Web content, including Web pages, images, news and blog content, among others.

Heymann joins Ask.com from Seekport Internet Technologies GmbH, a search company focused on search solutions for consumers and B2B customers. At Seekport, Heymann was director of technology, Europe and responsible for the management of all technical professionals as well as all technology development for the company’s numerous sites, including Seekport Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, UK and France. Prior to Seekport, Heymann was technical director, Search at Lycos Europe N.V., where he was responsible for all search brands and products across Europe. Also, Heymann is a co-inventor of Fireball and Paperball, two German-language search engines.

Heymann holds a master’s of computer science degree with honors from Technische UniversitÀt, Berlin.

About Ask.com
A leading search engine on the Web, Ask.com combines world-class search technology with one-of-a-kind search tools to help people get what they are looking for faster. Ask.com sites include Ask.com US (http://www.Ask.com ), Ask.com Deutschland, Ask.com Espana, Ask.com France, Ask.com Italia, Ask.com Japan, Ask.com Nederlands and Ask.com UK. Additionally, Ask.com syndicates its search technology and advertising units to a network of affiliate partners. Ask.com is a division of IAC Search & Media, a wholly-owned business of IAC/InterActiveCorp (Nasdaq: IACI). Ask.com b-roll footage is available at www.thenewsmarket.com/ask.

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