Copyright/Trademark Policy
Editorial Policy

Copyright/Trademark Policy

All contents of this Web site are: Copyright (c) 2009 IAC Search & Media All rights reserved. The IAC Search & Media Marks that appear throughout the Ask web sites belong to IAC Search & Media and are protected by U.S. and international trademark laws. Ask, Ask.com and the "ask" button are registered trademarks of IAC Search & Media. The Ask logo, the stylized "Ask" logo, Ask for Kids, Ask Shopping Guide, Branded Animation, Sponsored Listings, Keyword Network, Direct Hit, Direct Hit Search, Popularity Engine, Popularity Ranking Engine, Popularity Search Engine, Personalized Search, Personalized Search Engine, Personalized Results, Analytics, and other Ask logos and product and service names are service marks or trademarks of IAC Search & Media. (the "IAC Search & Media Marks").

You agree not to display or use the IAC Search & Media Marks in any manner without IAC Search & Media's prior written permission. To seek permission to use any of the IAC Search & Media Marks, please contact IAC Search & Media in writing at the following address:

IAC Search & Media
Attention: Legal Department
555 12th Street, Suite 500
Oakland, CA 94607

The images referenced, made accessible or made available to you on these pages or by means of the Ask Image Search engine are protected by the copyright and trademark laws of the United States and other countries. Although you are permitted to locate and access the images through our search engine, you may need to obtain authorization of the owner of such materials before using them for any purpose other than viewing on the web. For authorizations to use an image, please contact the image owner as indicated on the source site, not Ask. Ask.com cannot guarantee that an Ask search will not locate unintended or objectionable content and Ask accepts no responsibility or liability for the content of any site included in any search results or otherwise linked to by the Ask services, or for your use of such content.

Copyrights and Copyright Agent

Ask.com asks our users to respect the intellectual property of others. Pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. sec. 512 ("the DMCA"), Ask has designated an agent to receive Notifications of Claimed Copyright Infringement on its site, who can be reached as follows:

copyright@ask.com, or

IAC Search & Media
Legal Dept.
Attention: Copyright Agent
555 12th Street, Suite 500
Oakland, CA 94607

If you believe in good faith that your work has been copied in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, please provide Ask.com's copyright agent the following:

In lieu of preparing your own Notification, you may print this Notification of Claimed Copyright Infringement form, complete and sign it, and mail it to our copyright agent at the above address.

Pursuant to the DMCA, once we receive a properly prepared Notification asserting copyright infringement, we will de-link the allegedly infringing site until we receive a properly prepared Counter-Notification. Even after we de-link an allegedly infringing site, it is possible that the site will reappear once a further search is run, due to the technology that many search engines employ in conducting searches for our users. Therefore, a more effective way to remove allegedly infringing material is by filing a Notification of Claimed Copyright Infringement with the Internet service provider that hosts the website.

If a Notification of Claimed Copyright Infringement has been filed with us against you, Ask will advise you of that fact. If you would like to file a Counter-Notification of Claimed Copyright Infringement, we will provide you with a mail-in form that accompanies our letter to you advising you of the claimed infringement.

You may want to seek independent legal counsel before filing a notification or counter-notification.

Ask.com asks its users and advertisers to respect the intellectual property of others. As stated in our advertising terms and conditions, Advertisers are solely responsible for the content of their advertisements and the keywords they select for keyword targeted advertising. Such responsibility includes ensuring that their use of such content is not violative of any intellectual property rights of others, notably trademarks.

Ask.com is not a publisher of the advertisements provided or produced by advertisers and simply facilitates the placement of such advertisement using its proprietary technology. Therefore Ask cannot arbitrate disputes between advertisers and trademark owners.

However, since Ask is mindful of the intellectual property rights of others, we are willing to briefly investigate good faith claims by trademark owners which may be brought to our attention through our Trademark Claim Page. If we determine that a protected trademark is used in the content of an advertisement served by Ask.com, we will request that the advertiser remove the allegedly infringing content or we will remove the advertisement.

Any investigation by Ask will be limited to claims concerning ads served by Ask.com. Ask will not investigate nor will respond to trademark claims with respect to listings or websites that appear in Ask.com's non-paid search results, i.e., in the Web Results, Narrow Your Search, Expand Your Search, or Related Names Sections of Ask.com. For any such claims, please contact the owner of the relevant web-sites.

We also encourage trademark owners to make their claims directly with the owners of the allegedly infringing web-sites or advertisements, or the Internet service provider that hosts such websites. This is a much more effective way to resolve trademark claims, particularly because advertisers may have similar advertisements on other sites.

Editorial Policy

Ask.com's mission is to deliver the most relevant answers to your everyday questions. We do this by providing a variety of results that match your search queries on Ask.com. These results are generated through multiple methods - from hand-selected answers to results delivered using state-of-the-art search technology. Below are explanations for how we generate our answers and search results, as well as definitions for some of the terms we use on our results page. If you have any questions about Ask.com's editorial policy, please contact Customer Service.

Automated Search Results
Ask.com delivers its primary search results using it's proprietary search technology. These search results appear under the heading "Web Results". Ask.com search technology uses sophisticated algorithms and Subject-Specific Popularity^SM data to generate the most relevant and authoritative results on the Web.

Sponsored Links
Results appearing under the heading "Sponsored Results" or "Sponsored Result" are provided by Google, a third party provider of pay for performance search listings. Google generates highly relevant sponsored results by allowing advertisers to bid for placement in this area based on relevant keywords. These results are distributed across the Internet to some of the world's most popular and well-known Web sites, including Ask.

Ask.com Smart Answers
Smart Answers utilize a combination of Ask.com's proprietary algorithmic search and natural language technologies, and structured-data providing quicker access to contextually accurate information. These results appear at the top of the Ask search results page and often present deep links to additional resources that can be found for free on the Web. Sites that these Smart Answer link to should meet the following guidelines:

1) Sites should load quickly and be polished, easy to read and easy to navigate.
2) Sites should be well maintained and updated regularly.
3) Sites should offer thorough and accurate information that provides information that is highly relevant to a user's search term(s).
4) Sites should offer additional links or information related to a user's search term(s).
5) Sites should demonstrate credibility by providing author and source citations and contact information.
6) E-commerce sites - Ask applies additional standards for e-commerce sites. When you ask a question that may involve buying products or services, Ask works to direct you to quality online shopping sites. These additional guidelines for e-commerce sites are listed below:

(a) Sites should provide secure transactions (preferably by SSL/SET)
(b) Sites should disclose policies for customer privacy, returns, exchanges and other customer concerns
(c) Sites should offer many types of the product being sought, relevant brands and/or an appropriate range of products
(d) Sites should provide adequate product information
(e) Sites should offer customer service by phone, preferably 24 hours a day
(f) Sites should be widely reputable and credible, as determined by PriceGrabber, the Better Business Bureau Online, the Public Eye, other media or Ask.com's in-house experience

In the course of searching for great information, Ask has established paid partnerships with web sites that may be included within the Smart Answer resource links. Ask applies its Editorial Guidelines to such web sites, regardless of any financial affiliation.

Weather Results
Ask.com's weather results are provided by weather.com®.

Adult Content
Ask.com receives millions of searches each day, some of which are sexual in nature. To ensure that our users only receive sexually explicit content when they ask for it and when they are 18 years of age or older, Ask.com presents a filtering alert and filters sexually explicit search results. In addition to alerting the user about the nature of the content, the filter also offers options to:

1. View the adult content; and
2. Once viewing the adult content, returning to the filtered results.

By viewing the adult content an end user agrees that they: are 1. over the age of 18 and have the legal right to possess adult content; 2. understand that the material may involve language, content, images, sounds and themes of an adult or controversial nature; 3. will not provide access to any of the materials in these Web pages to any persons under 18 years old or to any persons who do not have the legal right to access adult materials; 4. understand that all content reflects the views of the Web site authors and are not the views of IAC Search & Media., and that IAC Search & Media has no obligation to delete content that you may find offensive; 5. agree that you will not hold IAC Search & Media responsible for any materials located on these Web pages.